It's Not Forever
by Dannemund
Summary: A young Vault dweller and an old ghoul make friends in Michigan, brush against a powerful military force and a megalomaniacal dictator using mind control, and embark on an adventure proving love has no boundaries even in the face of adversity. Rated M for violence, tons of swearing, brief nudity, gore, sexual innuendos, and an exploding octopus. (Edited 8/26/15)
1. Lionel

**Author's Note (as of 8/26/2015):**I am _massively_ re-editing It's Not Forever. There are numerous reasons why, starting with some formatting problems and ending with a few other issues that have bugged me since I first published in April. There will be some added text; dialogue cleaned up, added to, or replaced entirely; and some of the more boring chapters should have a bit more bell and whistle. (I know they're boring, boy _howdy_ I can spin some dry stuff. I bored myself.)

I am making the chapters shorter, so there will be a _lot_ more of them, and hopefully this makes the story easier to read. They will _not_ be of uniform length, as I had presented them before. You might not notice the changes, but don't worry. It's still the same story. Enjoy!

* * *

This one's (still) for Cathy

because patience _is_ still a virtue in the wasteland

* * *

She'd run away again.

Lionel was patient. There weren't many places that a ghoul could go, in the wastes, without being shot at or chased off. Even decent folk still harbored unspoken animosity toward them. Couldn't see them as human, only saw the rotting muscle and missing facial features.

Only a ghoul could know another ghoul's pain. _She_ still hoped to find that one soul who would look past the ripped skin, the raw muscles, the tiny but gruesome smile she gave. Lionel had lived a long time. He'd never met anyone who treated ghouls as fairly as she wanted to be treated, except himself.

So when she ran away, he waited. She always came back, usually crying without tears, and he would comfort her. Until then he left the radio on, sat on the rock wall outside his shack, and watched the distance with his revolver on his lap. Giant ants scuttled about the dry lake bed, looking for bits of food. It was peaceful.

He _was_ patient. He'd always been patient with Lilian, but even in the time before the War he'd been irritatingly calm in times of panic. The crush of bodies in the nuclear light above the earth, the radioactive rain that had fallen, the oppressive heat as the world went to hell around him... Lionel smiled grimly to himself. She was young, yet. Still had memories of being whole. She'd lose them in time. He could wait.

After all, there wasn't much else to do out in the wastes.

Lionel dozed in the sunlight. The holes where his ears used to be, open to the elements, picked up the sounds of the world. A lone gunshot in the distance, the ants skittering across the dry earth, dust picked up and scattered through the bushes and trees. He could remember when the world was full of noise. Now, silence pressed down like an enormous hand.

Lionel no longer believed in God. If he had believed, once, he couldn't say. Things in this world happened because some person made them happen; Lilian ran away because her heart was as soft as her head. Lionel waited for her because he was too tired to chase her.

He'd waited for three weeks, last time. She'd gone off, met a group of mercenaries. Escaped by the seat of her pants when they attempted to take her into slavery. That was what she'd told him, sobbing on his shoulder, when she wobbled her way back to his shack northwest of Grayling.

He wondered if she was really that stupid, or if she was damn lucky. Stupid, because she kept going away even though she was safe, well-fed, and provided with company. But lucky, because she was able to return each and every time. Lucky that he'd been around to take her in. Lucky that he cared for her.

This time, he waited for three weeks and longer. The food stores he kept dwindled, and he was forced to visit Grayling. Lionel hated money. It was trouble to keep track of what he had, which was very little, and caused too much strife when one had too much of it. He gathered a few things to barter with, and set out across the wastes.

He walked slowly. Others might think this was because he was old. Lionel was capable of moving just as quickly, if not quicker, than most smoothskins, and the ones who thought he was easy pickings would learn that his Navy training hadn't gone to ruin. The only people who knew better, knew him by name and didn't assume.

Lionel's legs ached, though. In the never-changing season of the wasteland, he recalled his grandfather rambling on about arthritis and the deep-seated ache in his knees when it rained.

He approached Grayling, calling up to the gate guard. Grayling kept a close eye on the wastes, minding the occasional raider, ant, or bloatfly that might lurk nearby. On at least one occasion, a group of men in power armor had rounded up non-residents and marched them south. Lionel hadn't witnessed that one, and didn't care. People were subject to all manner of horrible things, out here. In the past, he'd been one of those things.

He smiled grimly to himself. Lillian hadn't learned _that_ lesson, yet. But that was why she had him, to take care of her.

Grayling had three large Pre-War houses that acted as clinic, town hall, and common house. All other buildings were either cobbled together from debris and corrugated metal sheets, like his own shack, or were open areas with crumbling walls. He bought as much food as he could barter for, in one of the open food stalls. The food was all shit, but his stomach didn't care. Wasn't much left of it, anyway.

"You're quiet today," the woman running the stall said. He tried to remember her name. She had pretty red hair and heavy eyes. He shrugged. "Not much to say?" she asked.

"Cat got my tongue," he muttered.

"Beg pardon?"

He shook his head and handed over the scrap metal and other odds and ends he'd brought. After, he walked to the lean-to that served as general store. He prided himself on his mechanical skills; the mechanic that ran the store occasionally offered him a job. Needed to make some caps and get some more food.

"Lionel!" the man called, waving him over. "Been waiting for you. I got this thing with your name all over it." He kicked a filter to the corner of the lean-to, and gestured for him to follow.

Lionel was embarrassed, now. He'd been away from the town for so long, he'd forgotten everyone's name. He looked down and muttered to himself.

"Hey, you okay?"

"Fine," he rumbled. "What is it?"

He spent the rest of the afternoon fixing an engine that had seen far better days. Lionel ran a hand along the frame, peering into it with cataract-covered eyes. He could still see fine. Not everyone was that lucky.

"Where's Lil?" the mechanic asked.

Lionel grunted, in response.

"Oh," the man replied. An awkward silence filled the room. Then, "How long she been gone, this time?"

"Couldn't say," Lionel rasped. He didn't want to think about it.

The mechanic switched topics, quickly. "There's a stranger in town," he said. "Some girl, calling herself a historian."

Lionel patiently listened to the man as he talked about this homeless girl who offered to write down the stories of the townsfolk in exchange for a solid meal. Will wonders never cease, he thought.

"Anyway, I thought you might be interested," the mechanic said.

Lionel barked a laugh. "I'd be feeding her for three months." He adjusted a bolt, felt a knuckle dislocate in his hand. "You're done, here," he said, and popped his finger back into place with a practiced motion.

He took the payment the mechanic offered, grabbed up his sack, and hit the food stall again. Didn't want to have to come back for a long time. He bought food, sat down, and let the stares that always came bounce off of him.

One person, a young-looking girl in dark clothing that reminded him of a Franciscan monk, watched him as he ate the entire bowl of squirrel stew. It wasn't bad, if you couldn't taste the "squirrel". He ignored her curiosity, but rolled his eyes. Must be that "historian" girl. She was watching him real intently, and it started to annoy him.

Lionel left the bowl on the table once he'd finished and stalked off. Maybe he'd get lucky, and escape town without having to answer awkward questions.


	2. The Visit

The trek back to his shack took him the greater part of three hours, because he stopped from time to time to rest his legs. So much walking, he thought, he'd be stiff tomorrow. He skirted the dry lake bed and walked along the rock wall until he found the ledge that led into it, where his shack was hidden by carefully maintained bushes and trees. Lionel hadn't lived this long to be eaten by ants or set upon by raiders.

Lilian's face rested in the forefront of his mind, her relatively clear eyes and half-smile spurring him on to the shack. But she wasn't there.

He let out a long sigh, and counted the days, slowly. _Two months?_ He recounted, and with shaking hands, gathered and put her things into a sack. He shoved it underneath the bed frame in the corner of the shack. If she didn't return by the time he had to go to town again, he would sell them.

Lionel felt every bit his age, then. Without Lilian, he would be alone. Until his eventual death at the hands of a local or by his own hand, if he could ever get the nerve. He doubted he could, ever, but maybe things would be different once he started to lose his mind. He wasn't scared of the wasteland. He was scared of going feral.

_Damn that woman and her foolhardy notion of true love!_

He left the shack, slamming the door harder than he would have normally. A motion in the bushes around the rock wall caught his attention, and he drew his revolver. He aimed, before speaking.

"If you ain't a critter, you'd damn well better stand up!"

The girl in black, who'd watched him at Grayling, rose from the greenery. He kept the gun on her and motioned her out of the bushes. "Listen," he growled, "I'm not real _friendly,_ lately, so you'd best get right on back to town."

She held her hands in front of her chest, palms out. "I just wanted to ask some questions," she said. "Couldn't catch you back there."

"Don't care." He lifted the revolver up to shoulder-height. "I _will_ shoot you."

"You're Lionel, right?" she said. "Lionel Meisburg?"

His finger tightened on the trigger. "Who told you my last name?" No one should know that. He'd been "just Lionel" for over seventy years.

She smiled sheepishly. "Lucky guess?"

Lionel pointed the revolver at her feet and shot a round into the ground. "Start running."

She jumped and her hands went straight into the air, revealing a Pip-Boy on her left arm. He lowered the gun even further, squinting. "Look, I'll explain, if you'll let me!" she shrilled, pleadingly.

He stood there, thinking hard. The last time he'd seen a Pip-Boy, the kid attached to it had been stupid enough to run out onto the ant mounds in the dry lake bed. Lionel had not bothered to warn him and the ants; didn't like the boy's reaction to his appearance. He'd gone out and retrieved the Pip-Boy, and kept it for a while as a curiosity, before selling it in Grayling.

Who knew where these kids were coming from? The Vaults, all of them that he had heard about, were living prisons, horror stories for even the wasteland standard. This girl was about as screwed as that boy had been, but Lionel didn't to be the cause.

He snorted, sounding like a slingshot. Wasn't much he could do but give in to her. "Come inside," he grumbled, but kept the revolver on her until she'd gotten inside. He ordered her to sit in one of the chairs at the table.

Once seated, she lowered the hood of the monk outfit. Her hair was a messy tangle of brassy brown curls, eyes mud-colored and darting around the shack.

"Don't get any ideas," he warned.

"No, sir," she said.

Because he still valued whatever manners he had left, which he admitted might not be much, he opened the fridge and pulled out a Nuka-Cola. He thumped it down on the table in front of her. She jumped, then saw the bottle and thanked him. "Explain," he ordered, taking the seat across from her.

She smiled, hesitantly. "Well, uh... My name is Celia Landis," she said. "I'm recently of a Vault, sir."

Lionel had known a Landis, before the War. He hoped that she wasn't a relative. _Cockamamie bastard._

"My family keeps a lot of records, dating back to the days before the Vaults. I am the unofficial family storyteller," she said, smiling proudly. "Anyway, my Vault sends someone out into the world to determine whether or not it's inhabitable, every few years. Been doing it since before I was born."

"This time, it was you." He rolled his eyes away from her. Better they stay put. It was shit out here.

"Yes." She looked a little embarrassed. "May... May I call you Lionel?"

"You can call me Babe the Blue Ox, for all I care," he said, dryly.

"Ah!" She smiled. "Paul Bunyan!"

His heart gave a weird little hop. He smashed it down, quickly. _Behave,_ he thought. He'd not heard reference to the folktale in so long. "Lionel will do fine."

"Because I was chosen, I'm using what talent I have for storytelling to get around. The world definitely seems inhabitable, if somewhat... _dire."_ She studied his face.

He ignored it, pointedly. "And that stupid boy, about five years ago? Had a Pip-Boy like yours."

"Bobby Perkins," she said. "Last of his line. Is he dead?"

"As a door nail," Lionel replied, gravely. "The ants in the lake bed are a problem, on occasion. You stay clear of them."

"Yes, sir," she said, positively, and pulled back a sleeve to activate her Pip-Boy. "I'll have to tell his parents."

Lionel watched nimble fingers fly across the display, wishing he had the agility she did. The radio filled the silence of the room with a sad tune. He stood and turned it off, then returned to his seat at the table.

"So," she said, hesitating. "...I was looking through my great-grandfather's journals, and I remembered he mentioned a friend named Lionel Meisburg."

"Joey Landis was _not_ a friend," Lionel rasped, ferociously, then lowered his tone at her stunned look. "We worked together on yachts, out in Grand Traverse."

"His journal is... _colorful,"_ she said, carefully, "but he considered this Lionel a friend, and mourned his passing in the days after the War."

Lionel exhaled, long and forced. She looked up sharply at the sound, then, opened her mouth and quickly closed it. "What?" he snapped.

"Well―" she stopped herself.

"Well, what?"

"How did you _live_ this long?" she almost whispered.

He laughed, a mean laugh, and it filled the uncomfortable silence of the one-room shack. Slapping a hand down on the table, he shook his head in disbelief. "You've never seen a ghoul before," he spat.

"I am not... familiar with that," she said, quietly. Nervous eyes watched him.

Lionel laughed again, and tried to stop himself. _Cherries, all of them!_ He'd give his left arm for that kind of innocence, if even for only a day. The girl made a note on her Pip-Boy as he managed to wind it down.

"This, girl, is what happened to a lot of us who weren't so lucky to be trapped in those living prisons they call Vaults. You," he jabbed her arm roughly, "are a smoothskin. I am a zombie."

She looked at him in confusion, then frowned and glanced down at her Pip-Boy. "May I... May I take notes on your appearance? For the Vault?" She managed a brief smile. "For the record, I don't think you're a zombie. Just different."

"Whatever. Knock yourself out," he rasped, waving a hand and letting it drop roughly to the table.

Celia stood, and walked around him, typing furiously. After a few minutes, she reached a hand out to touch him, and stopped herself. "Uh," she said.

"Whatever," he repeated.

She touched his arm, palpating the muscle, ran a finger along the edge of skin that remained. "Soft tissue damage and skin loss," she murmured, a curious tone in her voice. Lionel endured it, feeling uncomfortable. It had been a long time since a smoothskin had dared to touch him, even gently. "...And hair loss."

"I was bald, before," he said, trying to dispel the feeling, "lost the hair on my entire body though. Lilian did, too."

She shined the light from the Pip-Boy into his eyes. "Who is Lilian?"

Lionel snapped his mouth shut. He shouldn't be talking to this girl and he shouldn't have mentioned Lilian, even if she hadn't come back yet. If she were to find him here, with a girl who wasn't one-eighth of his age... He squinted against the bright light. He wouldn't be talking to her if Lilian hadn't gone away, anyway. It wouldn't hurt him to answer a few questions.

Celia continued the examination, without comment. She asked to see his hands and feet, and he sighed as he removed his boots.

"Did you―"

"I lost my toes on the bay," he rasped, "before the War." He wiggled his remaining three toes at her. She snickered a little, then covered her mouth.

"Okay," she said, and sat back down. "You eat perfectly fine, I saw that. Can you tell me anything else?"

He focused his eyes on her, critically. "The radiation caused this―" he held out a hand, showing his ragged palm. "It heals me. Makes ghouls go... feral."

"Feral?" she asked.

He sighed. "Look, you stay out of that Vault long enough, you'll run into some _real_ zombies."

"But they're still people," she stated. "Like you and me."

"About as much as a wolf is a dog," he said.

She scrutinized him with big doe eyes. He felt self-conscious under her gaze, that innocent stare. "You know a lot about Pre-War animals?" she asked, wondering.

"Used to be, people would go to zoos to see them," he said, off-hand.

"I would like that," she said, softly.

The room went quiet, each of them thinking their own thoughts. Lionel was curious what she was going to do with all the stories she'd collected from the people of Grayling. It seemed a useless pursuit.

"Tell me about your Vault," he asked, in a rare moment of friendliness.

"It's dark," she said, with a sad tone. "Darker than this room, and cramped." Her face took on a distressed look. "The air is bad, because the filters can't get rid of the toxins that build up, and fires break out in the wiring every week. People die. A lot of people."

"That's why they sent you out," he muttered. She nodded, blankly. "Go home. You're safer. It's certain death, out here in the wastes."

"Everyone said that," she mumbled, sounding sad. She sniffled a little, looked away.

"There's no room for hope in the wasteland," he rasped, a hard edge creeping into his voice.

She grabbed up the Nuka-Cola, uncapped it, and took a long drink, then set it back onto the table. "I'll go home," she said, passing it to his side of the table. "Thank you for talking to me."

He grunted at her as she rose. She went to the door, opened it, and paused. Darkness had fallen. Lionel swore, mentally. Of _course,_ and he'd have to play the gentleman, let her stay the night. Couldn't afford to have another dead kid on his conscience, especially since this one was a hell of a lot nicer than the boy had been.

"It's too dark," he said. "You should wait until morning."

"I couldn't impede your sleep," she said, but shut the door.

"What?" he asked. "Never mind―if you're staying here, you're sleeping on the floor." Lionel picked up the soda cap, put it into his pocket, and put the bottle into a box by the door. "You won't be able to see what's coming for you, in the dark. Might get eaten."

"I get the idea," she muttered.

Lionel unhooked the lamp, causing the room to go black. He quietly stashed the bottle cap on the top of the fridge, just in case, and sat down on the mattress. Stared across the murky room for a moment, thinking about Lillian. Missed her. Wished she was home. Couldn't sleep good without her around.

He laid down, with his back to the wall. He probably wasn't going to sleep anyway, with a stranger in the shack.

"Good night, Lionel," she said, in the gloom.

He only grunted and squeezed his eyes as tightly shut as he could manage.


	3. Celia

Celia woke to the radio playing a jaunty tune. She blinked at the light that poked through the holes in the corrugated metal wall of the shack, confused at first as to where she was. Her neck was stiff, from having slept on the floor, and she felt hollow.

When she finally sat up, she was dizzy and faint for a moment. Her stomach protested that it hadn't had food for quite some time. Celia sighed to herself. It had been almost a whole day since she last ate. She got the feeling that would happen often, outside of the Vault.

Lionel was cooking something over the stove. Even though she'd had some truly awful food outside of the Vault―_who ate dog meat, anyway?_―she felt so hungry she could have eaten her shoes. "Good morning," she said. He didn't reply. "May I please have something to eat?" she asked, hopeful.

The ghoul made a noise like two pebbles clicking together and gestured to the table. Two places had already been set. She sank into the chair and waited patiently, wondering what was the cause of the gravelly voice that he had. He made some very startling noises. It was... interesting. Didn't know why, it just was.

Celia didn't start eating until he did, out of politeness. It took her some effort to not shovel it into her mouth as quickly as she could swallow. Lionel ate slowly, not looking up, so she examined him again, while she tried to match his pace.

It was certainly awful, this ghoul condition. She could see how he must have looked, before the change. There was a wide jaw, squared, leading to a thick neck. His head, without hair, was cut square, with no eyelids, nose, or lips. He had eyes that were blurred with starry cataracts, but a deep dark color on the rim. She liked those eyes. They were cold, but white-hot with emotions roiling inside.

His skin looked like it had peeled away from the muscles. Blue veins poked out of them, tracing patterns across what exposed flesh she was able to see. He was... sort of blue, all over, like those pictures she'd seen of Pre-War lakes. A very pale blue that made his simple t-shirt look darker than the stained off-white fabric had probably been, at some point. When she'd touched him, he was dry like a bone. Actually, she could see bone poking out of the back of his neck, when he turned his head to spit out a piece of gristle.

It looked like a living hell. _But,_ she thought, _if he's lived to this age_―she did the math in her head, hazarded a guess of about one hundred and thirty―_he's probably come to terms with it._ She wondered about Lilian, if she was a ghoul, too. Wondered what she looked like, if it was different for women.

"You shouldn't stare at anything in the wastes for too long," Lionel grumbled, without looking at her. "You'll end up dead, or worse." He stabbed a fork into his food.

Celia flushed. "Sorry," she mumbled, and looked down at her plate. He'd acted like that before, when she first saw him. _Guess he doesn't like being stared at._

A minute passed. "How far is it, your Vault?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Couple miles? I'll be okay, if that's what you mean."

Lionel jabbed a knife into the lump on his plate, and clenched his jaw. "Was thinking about the ants."

She fell silent. She'd seen them, as big as a person, crawling around on their mounds. She knew better than to go near anything like that. But Bobby... _oh, poor Bobby._ Mr. and Mrs. Perkins would be so devastated; they were still hopeful that he would be found.

Lionel cleared his plate, wiped it off and stacked it away. "Goes without saying, be careful. Can't trust anyone, even me," he rasped.

She looked up sharply. His back was still to her, a hand on the shelf. He didn't turn around or move at all. She swallowed hard, thinking. She'd met some... troubled people, in the world, so far. She understood. It made you crazy or tough, being out here. She wondered which one Lionel was.

Celia finished her food in a flash and cleaned up, handing him the plate. As she walked to the door, she stopped and looked over her shoulder at him. "Lionel?"

"Yeah," he said, looking at something on the shelf. He still hadn't turned around.

She faced him, wondering if he was testing her. No one else she'd met had turned their back to her, intentionally. "Thank you again for speaking to me. May I come back sometime?"

Lionel chuckled in a low tone. "Whatever floats your boat, kid."

She said good-bye and began the long walk across the wastes to the Vault entrance.

* * *

The dusty earth under her feet, the various types of shrubs, trees growing crooked through fissures in the rock, but growing nonetheless, even the sun shining down through a cornflower sky―it all seemed so pleasant, but made her very sad. Compared to home, it was a paradise.

Well, except for the ants. She made a face. She didn't much like the ants.

She reached the rocky outcropping that hid the Vault door, making sure she wasn't followed. Overseer Calhoun had been specific that they keep a low profile. She cast off the dark robe, adjusting the Vault jumpsuit she'd hidden underneath, and wound her way through tunnels carved into the hillside. It took her nearly an hour to find the door, since she was forced to backtrack a few times at dead ends. Dripping sounds echoed in the closed tunnels, making her nervous. Finally, the Vault door loomed in the distance, and she pried open the false rock that contained the door controls.

It wouldn't respond right away. Frustrated, Celia jabbed at the buttons wildly. With an ear-splitting screech, the door pulled away from the Vault and rolled to the side. Celia held up the identification that Overseer Calhoun had given her when she left, and advanced into the Vault.

Vault Security escorted her to the clinic for a precautionary checkup. Officer Pesaro, Head of Vault Security, kept a careful eye on anyone approaching her, in case she was contaminated. Celia suspected he would have done that even if she _hadn't_ gone outside, since it wasn't the first time the white-haired authority figure had marched her through the hallways of the Vault.

Mrs. Perkins held her up before she made it to the Overseer's office. "Did you see him?" she asked, her breath catching on the last word.

Celia looked at the older woman, her heart wrenching. "I'm going to speak with the Overseer, first," she said, gently. "I'll come talk to you after."

She ducked into the cafeteria, came out the other side, and went up the stairwell to the upper level of the lobby. Across the catwalk, she could see Overseer Calhoun looking out the window of his office.

She knocked before entering, and opened the door when he called, "Come in."

"Overseer," she said. She moved to stand in front of his desk.

Calhoun sat behind his desk. He was about forty, with dark-colored skin and eyes that were nearly as black as night, and a short goatee trimmed neat perfection. Celia hadn't had a chance to see him up close, really. She normally avoided all authority―it would be funny if she didn't actually _have_ a security record.

"How did it go?" he asked.

"Dangerously," she answered. "Apart from various land hazards, mutated creatures roaming about and low-level radiation around the outside door of the caverns... I was shot at."

Calhoun raised an eyebrow, frowning. She handed her Pip-Boy to him. "There are people? Or robots?"

"People and robots," she said. "I recorded as many life histories as I could. Some of them have had run-ins with various militant and non-militant factions in the area." She paused and cleared her throat. "Some people have banded together to raid towns."

Calhoun pressed his lips together and flicked a finger at a knob. "Government?"

Celia shook her head. "Not wide-scale. The mayor of the closest town, called Grayling, says that government is localized and varies by the official."

He asked a few more questions pertaining to her notes, then asked if she had anything to note that she hadn't written down.

"Well," she said, thinking about Lionel and his condition, "some of the people who were outside of Vaults when the bombs fell... didn't die. I met one of them―he called himself a ghoul." She made a pained face. "It's really something you have to see to believe."

"No one could have lived that long," the Overseer said, but looked at the notes she'd taken and raised his eyebrow again. "It sounds impossible."

"Like I said, you have to see it to believe it." She shifted her weight. "May I be excused? I'm sore from sleeping on a metal floor, and Mrs. Perkins is waiting for me..."

He waved her away, engrossed in the Pip-Boy and her reports.


	4. The Vault

Celia spent the next few hours trying to explain to Mr. and Mrs. Perkins what had happened, wording it as neutrally as she could. Lionel had been holding something back, she thought, but she only had what he'd told her, to pass on to Bobby's parents.

She retired to the room she occupied, by her lonesome, in the women's dormitory. She washed her face in the shared bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. The Vault seemed extremely dreary and closed-in after having been outside.

A popping noise caught her attention, then the alarms began to blare. Celia covered her face with the neck of her shirt and moved out of the dormitory, to the lobby. Coughing, several others came from their living quarters and joined her. A puff of smoke followed Mike Rind and Jason Knowles as they hurried out and closed the door. "All clear!" Mike yelled.

The door sealed with a hissing noise. A head count was taken, and once the threat had been cleared, Calhoun took to the head of the lobby and addressed the Vault dwellers.

"As you are all aware," he began, "the air filters are inadequate for cleaning up our oxygen. Just now, the men's dormitory caught fire, and the smoke cannot be cleared. By that, I mean there is nothing filtering the air in the men's dormitory, at all."

He held out his hands to calm the clamor that arose. "We are out of replacement filters! If we choose to stay in the Vault, the air will continue to deprecate. Even opening the Vault cannot replace the proper amount of air to maintain the Vault. Without some device to force the bad air out and draw good air in, we'd only stagnate further _and_ draw unwanted attention." He gestured to Celia. "Our latest scout reports that the world is irrevocably changed, but moderately inhabitable. We must seek out a new home, or build our own."

Gasps and whispers went through the crowd. Celia felt eyes on the back of her head. "Why not?" she muttered.

Mrs. Perkins called out, "But there are creatures out there that we are not prepared to fight!"

"We have many able-bodied young men who could do with some target practice," Officer Pesaro said.

"If we start by investigating the nearby town... Celia Landis reports that ammo is sold in large amounts, weaponry too, but we will conserve. Food is a primary concern, so we will send out a team to ascertain our options before the majority of us leave." Calhoun placed his hands on his hips and stared out over the crowd.

"What is there is to eat?" Mr. Bailman asked. "What could possibly grow out in the irradiated wastes?"

"There isn't much radiation in our area, actually," Calhoun said. "And I'd rather risk a stomach ache than suffocate in my sleep." He chuckled wryly. "We've got Rad-Away, and Dr. Sorel and Nurse Boyer can learn to deal with the influx."

"What about water?" Jacob Ievvi asked.

"There's nothing wrong with the water in the area."

"But is there water nearby? We can't lay pipes, not without attracting attention like you said."

Celia left them to discuss the situation's details, and sought out her brother. Ed Landis was sitting in the cafeteria with Ann, his wife, looking dour. "Howzit?" she asked, and plopped herself into a seat beside Ed. The brown-skinned man turned a suspicious eye onto his little sister.

Ann Landis always looked like she was disgusted. "I can't believe we're being forced to leave the Vault," she said.

Celia ignored her. "Ed?"

"We should make it voluntary. Janice Armstrong has stepped up to become the new Overseer, if Calhoun decides to leave. We can't risk everyone out there." Ed looked through the window of the cafeteria, not meeting the women's eyes.

Celia sat back and wondered if Ed had even listened to what Calhoun said. "We'll probably end up doing that, anyway," she said, coolly, and looked through the window at the mob of people in the lobby.

"What is it like out there?" Ed asked.

"Bright," Celia said. "The ground is mostly bare, but there are shrubs, with berries on, and trees. Lots of small creatures, some bigger ones. Ants," she said, watching Ann's pinched face squirm. "There's something called a yao guai out there, some kind of mutated bear? ...If your walls are tall enough, you can keep out everything but raiders."

"People are _raiding?!"_ Celia's sister-in-law flushed, her gray eyes wild.

"All people are capable of theft, dear," Ed said. calmly.

"I think that's why Calhoun wants as as many people on board as he can get," Celia said. "To keep out the bad ones." Ed and Ann were not impressed.

Jacob came and fetched Celia back to the lobby. "We're taking a small group out to scout," Calhoun told her, "I'd like you to come with."

"Sure," she agreed. "Bring weapons."

* * *

Once fully outfitted, the group of people―including Celia, Overseer Calhoun, Mike Rind, Thomas Perkins and Sally Bailman―left the Vault. Celia watched the Vault door close, saw it shuddering, and wondered if it was having mechanical issues. _What happens if it never reopens?_ she wondered, shivers running down her spine.

The group entered the bright light of the wastes, temporarily blinded by it. Mike and Sally walked slightly ahead to get the lay of the land, consulting their Pip-Boys for information about the terrain. Calhoun had Celia show him the way she'd gone to Grayling, and their relation to the crumbling asphalt of the highway.

The wind was warm, blowing dust into their faces, as they worked their way down the highway towards Grayling. Celia kept her eyes open, but didn't notice anyone or anything roaming the road except for the Vault dwellers. She paused to take a breath at the top of an embankment, and looked down out of curiosity.

"Calhoun!" she called.

"Oh, poor bastard," Mike groaned, looking down at the dead body sprawled at the base of the embankment. "Christ, the skin is gone from her face. If she wasn't wearing that dress..."

"That's a ghoul," Celia said.

"Let's have a look." Calhoun slid down the embankment. Mike and Celia followed, while Thomas and Sally kept watch on the road. Celia moved to the body, and pointed out what she'd mentioned in her notes: the desiccated skin, loss of tissue on the face and the missing bodily hair. She made a personal note that both the dead woman and Lionel were missing the same facial features.

"Seems like a fresh body," Mike said.

"Ugh, how would you know?" Sally called out.

"When my grandma died, she was cold by morning," he answered. "And stiff. This one," he lifted an arm and dropped it. "Is not."

Celia checked the pockets of the body, coming up with a handful of bottle caps, and a Stimpak. "This is currency," she said to Calhoun. She went through the backpack nearby, while Calhoun stared at the corpse, his face distressed. A slim piece of metal shaped like an L-beam fell out, and she examined it. It was too rusted to tell what it was supposed to be, but she pocketed it anyway.

Calhoun motioned for everyone to get back to the road. They couldn't go out of their way to bury her, but they did drag a bit of dead brush on top of the body.

"You weren't kidding," he finally said, after a moment of uncomfortable silence.

"Lionel is worse off than that woman," Celia said.

Mike laughed, high-pitched and nervously. "Do all the people out here look like that?"

"No," Celia said, "only the ghouls."

The walls of Grayling rose in front of them, lit up by the sun, and Calhoun made an awed noise at the structure. Sheets of corrugated metal had been pieced together, stretching for half a mile across the dry earth. Celia pointed out the pulley system that worked the gate, powered by electric engines. The front half of a car jutted out of the ground nearby, stuck in a bog of some kind. A gate guard, sitting in a metal tower above the wall, aimed his rifle down on them and called out a greeting.

"Well, people," Calhoun said, "Let's make some friends."


	5. Being Friendly

Lionel was not a worrier. He accepted that things either did, or didn't, happen. Because of this, he didn't think much about the Vault girl after she'd left. Found himself occupying his time with other projects, like the roof of his shack. It needed some repairs to the wooden beams that held it in position. After he'd gotten up there and pried up the metal up, inspecting the beams, he'd fallen and broken his leg.

He limped along the road to Grayling, eyeing the lines in the dirt around the highway. Something had passed this way; looked like a few people with sprawling movement around the asphalt, the occasional shuffle into the dirt. He wasn't as concerned about the broken leg as he was getting surprised on the highway with a crippled limb, or his roof caving in on him in the middle of the night. It needed fixed. So did he.

He could have tried to walk to the Radcommons, along the highway, where a large amount of irradiated barrels had been piled into a crater. He did not want to go near the radiation, risk speeding up his chance to become feral. And he sure as hell wasn't touching any pain medicine. He learned that lesson, long ago.

Grayling was busy. Lionel limped around for fifteen minutes before he collared a resident and asked where the clinic was. The kid looked at him and pointed, then vanished.

He paid Dr. Jen and received Stimpaks, then kicked his feet up onto the gurney, staring at the faded and grungy poster on the wall. He wouldn't mind a real candy striper, right about now. Things in general, were becoming less pleasant by the day.

As he relaxed, an extremely black man entered the clinic and caught Dr. Jen in a conversation. He shot the ghoul a curious glance. Lionel ignored it and stared the posters harder. _So many new faces,_ he thought. _That Vault must have given up the ghost._

"Are you Lionel?" the black man asked, moving to the bed.

"Too many people are interested in me lately," he grumbled. "I might get a new name."

The man laughed, an easy grin on his face. "I'm Jack Calhoun," he said. "I was Overseer of the Vault that Celia Landis came from."

Lionel nodded, vaguely. "Everyone came out."

"Not all of us. Most felt... unsafe, outside. I've got a small crew of people here, attempting to find a place to live."

"Good luck with that," Lionel muttered.

"Actually, Celia said you might know more about the area," Calhoun said. "I've been meaning to come and speak with you."

"Maybe another time," Lionel said. "Got a lot on my to-do list."

"Hey, I understand. You let me know when it's a good time, I'll come see you, whatever you need." Calhoun waved and walked out of the clinic.

Lionel worked a toe through a hole in his sock, inside his boot. He wondered about the Vault dwellers. Would they last a year in the wastes? Unlikely. He wasn't a real friendly person but he wouldn't mind a town a little closer to his shack, maybe with a doctor and a general store. Anywhere he could sell scrap for caps, as long as it was closer.

His leg twinged a little. _Those Stimpaks are some sure miracle,_ he thought. Nothing ached right now. Once the anesthesia wore off, his shinbone would hurt like hell. He wished Lilian had been around when he decided the roof needed fixed. _She would have been the one who broke her leg,_ he laughed to himself. _That'd stuff a potato in her tail-pipe, not even being able to run away._

Thinking about Lilian made him miserable. He waited for Dr. Jen to come back and check his leg.

"What happened, Lionel?" someone asked from the doorway. He turned his head, staring down Celia, and didn't answer.

She moved into the room and he noticed she'd changed into the Brahmin-skin overalls that wastelanders were fond of. Her arms seemed to be darker than they had, previously. "Thought I told you to go home," he grumbled.

"The Vault has bad air," she said. "I'm not going back." A sad look crossed her face.

"You'll regret it." He shrugged, half-heartedly.

"Nonsense," she said. "There's nothing stopping me from surviving out here."

He grunted. "Say that when you break a leg."

"You haven't given up, have you?" she teased, mildly.

"No, I haven't," he snapped.

"I don't think you'd be at the doctor, if you had," she said. "Did you break your leg?"

"Fell off my roof, fixing it." He adjusted himself on the gurney. _These things are never comfortable,_ he thought.

"Oh," she said. "You want some help? Mr. Perkins is pretty good at jury-rigging."

"I'm not _dead,"_ he grumbled. "Go away, kid!"

She turned and left without a word. How dare she assume he needed help, like some useless lump. She probably pitied him for his condition. That kind of person was especially hard to get rid of, when they dug their heels in.

Dr. Jen returned after another hour, examined his leg, and he caught up to the local gossip. "You should be nicer to the Vault people," she said. "They've been real helpful since they arrived."

"Any of 'em walking on water, yet?" he jibed.

"You know better than that," Dr. Jen said. "Having new people in town, it's good for business."

He grunted and concentrated on his leg. What good could he do, anyway. He was too old and too grumpy to be useful to anyone. The only person who didn't care if he talked was that mechanic. Damn, what was his name?

"Lionel," Dr. Jen was saying. _"Lionel!"_

He looked up. "What?" he growled.

"Are you turning feral on me?" She gave him a stern look.

"Hell, _no,"_ he said. "I'm irritable. It happens to all old men."

"Don't I know that," she chuckled. "Lilian's still gone?" He didn't answer. Dr. Jen sighed. "You'll find new company," she said. "Couldn't hurt you to make a friend, at the very least."

She applied a second round of medicine to his leg, and he wondered what he would do. If Lilian didn't come back... he couldn't isolate himself, it was a death sentence. And he didn't feel like dying any time soon.

When she released him from the clinic, he gave himself a kick in the ass and found out where the Vault people were. After being directed to the common house, he made his way through the wide street toward it. _Hope I don't regret this one,_ he thought to himself.

* * *

"May I call you Lionel?" Jack Calhoun asked him, right off the bat.

"Are you people all this polite?" Lionel griped.

"It's basic manners," Calhoun said, and the ghoul's hackles raised.

"Whatever," he rasped, smoothing them back. "Your people?" he asked, making a sweeping notion to the room. About ten or twelve people in Vault outfits and Brahmin-skin clothes were scattered around the couches, tables, and floor.

"The ones who wanted to come, have," Calhoun said. "Still trying for the rest."

"How much space are you looking for," Lionel continued.

"As much as possible," the former Overseer said. "Clearly, with so many people and many of them being married couples, we want to provide a safe home as quickly as possible."

Lionel scratched at what was left of his chin, thinking. "...If you were more experienced, I would suggest the abandoned military base. Place is crawling with robots, though." He went over the nearby area in his head. "Down south, there's some abandoned farms. Wouldn't be any people to argue if you moved in."

"A Pre-War structure would be our best bet?" Calhoun asked.

"Ain't many building materials laying around, are there?" Lionel said. He tried to keep the edge out of his voice, but failed.

Calhoun pulled up the Pip-Boy map and had Lionel show him where both those places were. The map was awful small, but he indicated a rough area for each one.

"Is your leg better?" Calhoun asked him, lowering his arm.

Lionel grunted. Damn that girl, telling people he was injured. That sort of volunteer information could get you skinned alive and hung to dry in some parts of the waste.

"Can you elucidate about the radiation?" the black man asked. "I'm curious to find out why it should heal you." He gestured to the table and chairs, nearby.

"That's a new one on me," Lionel said. _"Elucidate."_

"...Make clear? As strangers to the wastes, we have to know as much as possible to avoid danger." Calhoun sat, and gestured to the chair in front of him.

Lionel bristled at that. This persuasive attitude of Calhoun's would help them get off the ground, but Lionel was much too stubborn to to give into passive coercion. "Maybe later," he said. "It's personal."

Calhoun nodded, and moved on. "Don't suppose you could lead us to this military base, to get a feel for it?"

"You paying me?"

A tiny smile twitched on Calhoun's face. "Obviously we have very little money, right now," he said. He peered behind Lionel at someone opening the door to the common house. "We're working on that. ...Celia, what is it?"

Lionel looked, watched the girl walk soberly to Calhoun's side. "Ed and Ann," she murmured. "No one else."

"Twenty-two, now," Calhoun said, looking at Lionel. "Twenty-two people in need of a home."

Lionel stared him down, without speaking. They were absolutely fucked, he knew. He was already regretting this.

"Isn't your sister-in-law pregnant?" Calhoun asked Celia, who looked at him like he'd gone crazy.

"You folk need serious help," Lionel muttered. He sighed. _Not doing much with my time,_ he thought. _Might as well. _"...I'll see what I can do."


	6. Stubbornness

"That was a dirty trick!" Celia started.

"Can it, Landis," Calhoun said. She glared at him. "It was, I agree, but look at our situation! We've been in Grayling for two weeks and nothing has come of it. We need to get out of here and into our own home. Any advantage is useful."

"How can you take advantage of someone, like that? Banking on basic human decency to compel someone?"

Calhoun smiled at her. "I had to convince Officer Pesaro to let you back in the Vault by appealing to _his_ decency," he said.

She huffed. She didn't like treating people like that; she'd been the local "idiot" for too long at the Vault, to not take offense. But she wasn't dumb, and even if Lionel seemed like a simple person, he certainly didn't deserve that sort of rough consideration. He might not help them, if he realized Calhoun was playing him for a fool.

Calhoun shrugged, and continued, "The... ghoul isn't very friendly, anyway. All we can do is try."

"You wouldn't be very friendly if people kept taking advantage of you!" she said. Which, from what she'd inferred, was common. Lionel wasn't good with money, according to Dr. Jen, and frequently got taken in by the townsfolk. He was too stubborn to listen to advice, the doctor said.

"Behave, Celia," Calhoun said, and steepled his fingers. "I'll need your help, too."

She left the room before he could start in on her, too. She saw Lionel at the gate of the town, leaving for his shack. She ran to catch up, but the gate closed before she could get there. "Wait!" she yelled. "Let me out, too!"

The guard shook his head at her, from the post above the wall. "No way," he said. "It's getting dark and you haven't got a weapon. You'd get killed."

Celia snorted in anger, then climbed up to the guard post. _"Hey!_ You can't―" he said, before she dropped over the edge of the wall. The corrugated metal scraped at her hands and she lost her grip, falling ten feet to the ground. She landed on her back, in a patch of something thorny and painful. It took her a minute to catch her breath, and a few more minutes to wiggle out of the bushes.

"Don't be stupid!" the guard called. "Come back!"

She waved a hand at him. _Too late,_ she thought, and got her feet under her. Slowly, she caught up to the ghoul. He wasn't very tall, maybe a few inches on her, but he walked quickly when he wanted to. She was slightly out of breath when she managed to come up behind him. "I need to talk to you," she said.

Lionel just kept his eyes forward and continued onward, pressing his mouth together. Celia sighed, brushed briars out of her shirt, and followed him in silence. Their feet crunched on the dry ground, rocks and dead brush underneath.

It felt lonely, to be out in the open with no one to talk to. He clearly wasn't interested, and kept moving away from her in short bursts of speed. She watched the sky come down like a sliding door, and suddenly the world was amazing again. She gasped, looking up at the millions of stars. It had never been this clear, since she exited the Vault for the first time.

_So many stars._ The sight caused her to stumble into a bush and lose pace.

A briar was trapped inside her boot from the fall, digging into her leg. She ignored it as best she could, trying to keep up with Lionel. Eventually her pace slowed, and she started dropping behind him, and lost him entirely at one point. By the time she reached the ledge and had moved into the rock tunnel leading to his little hideaway, she was dog-tired.

He was crouched by the entrance to the opening, his revolver in his hand. He motioned for her to stop with a flat hand. Something was up.

She flattened herself against the rocks. He was staring intently at something, and she peered around the edge of the rocks to see. The radio played faintly from the shack, and a light was on inside, leaking out little rays through the holes in the metal siding. Celia pushed herself back against wall again, and patted it, indicating she would not move.

Lionel crept through the bushes, doing a much better job of being stealthy than she had before, disappearing after a moment. She heard a crunching noise, then the door to the shack banging off the outside of the wall, and a shout.

Loud voices carried through the rocks, bouncing off the walls of the entryway. "Over _three goddamn months!"_ Lionel yelled.

A vaguely female ghoul-like voice answered him, "Don't yell at me, Lionel. You can't treat me like that!" A crash echoed out into the rocks, bouncing around to Celia's ears.

The voices lowered, the door to the shack was pulled shut, and Celia sat back onto her butt on the rocky ledge. She picked the briar out of her sock, flicking it off into the darkness of the wastes.

After a moment of silence, she moved away from the opening and perched at the edge of the clump of trees hiding the opening. Looking up at the stars she could see through the spidery limbs, she wondered. A faint chitter caught her ear, and she stood, looking downward over the edge. _Must be out on the dry lake bed. _

Lionel wasn't very friendly, Calhoun was right about that. Didn't mean she should give up on him, though. He fascinated her. Not just because of his appearance but because he had spent so many years in the wasteland, and she was _certain_ that he could help the Vault dwellers if given proper respect. She was determined to try to crack that shell and pry out the Pre-War tales that she knew he could tell her, too. What was it like to live in that world, before the bombs, that she'd only imagined in her head with the help of holotapes and comics?

What was it like to have lived through... whatever horror the bombs had created, when they fell?

She hoped he wouldn't think her curiosity was stupid, like most of the Vault dwellers. She'd never met anyone so brusque and stubborn like he was. She couldn't hold a candle to that, even in her toughest moments. She'd had her moments, she knew.

Celia sat out by the rock for so long, she started falling asleep. She stood, stretched, and decided to try to make it back to Grayling, by herself. _I'm stubborn,_ she told herself, _and I can do it._


	7. For The Future

Calhoun was old hand at playing people against one another. The situation at hand was far less than ideal, but he was confident that it could be shaped into a more formidable plan. He could turn it around, especially now that Celia had gotten her brother Ed to leave the Vault. Without Ed, his idea for the abandoned military base would be useless.

Celia had stormed off in an immature rage, which irritated him, because he'd been hopeful that the girl would play to his tune. She was a hard one to persuade, but then, she'd always been a loner, lost in the tunnels of the Vault. Skipping school, getting into trouble, sneaking around like a dog with it's tail between it's legs... Calhoun sighed. Maybe she would be better off, out on her own. He'd rather she'd stick around. He liked her, despite her childishness. Liked her... in a way he'd not been fully able to explore, within the confines of the Vault.

Calhoun pushed such thoughts away, and gathered the key people to his plan. Mike Rind, Ed Landis, and the ever-stalwart Head of Vault Security, Officer Sam Pesaro, sat at a table in the common house, where Calhoun laid out his idea.

Using his Pip-Boy, he showed them the map altered by Lionel's information. "Here is the vague location of an abandoned military base," he said. "I am of the opinion that it would be our best bet for striking out. But, there are considerations to make, before we decide."

"A military base would be in terrible condition, after the War," Landis said, frowning. "Wouldn't it had been hit the hardest?"

"We'll have to have a look, regardless. If it's in terrible shape, we can try the southern option. But I want to run down the plan for this base first, and plan out as much as possible. Our... decaying associate says there should be robots patrolling the base, which means it has no raiders, creatures, or other sentient danger."

Sam Pesaro shook his head. "Old military robots-we'd get disintegrated if we bothered them."

Calhoun ignored the negative thoughts. "Ed, you were the head of robot repair at the Vault. Could you disable, or reprogram a military model Mister Handy?" He looked at the heavy-set man, expectantly.

Ed scratched his stubble and looked thoughtful. "Well..." He sighed. "The Vault Handys are on pre-programmed maintenance routines, and tethered to their individual station. These guys are probably free roaming, which means someone would have to get up close to manually shut them down."

"But it _could_ be done?" Calhoun shot him a critical look. "If someone was quick enough?" Ed nodded, warily. "So, we'll go look at the place, get a feel for what kind of security is there, and plan out action."

"...If there are any other kind of robots roaming the grounds, I'd need the specifications for them," Ed added, nervously. "The Vault has the appropriate training material for that."

"Like a how-to on building robots, maybe? It wouldn't be a bad idea to have more," Pesaro said.

"RobCo was pretty twitchy about corporate espionage," Mike said. "We'd have the wherewithal to disable, repair, and dismantle the security bots, but without the computer systems at the Vault, we couldn't even dream of reprogramming one."

"Anything you might be able to scrounge up from the Vault to help with that?" Calhoun asked.

"I know the ins and outs of the Handy hardware, but if we can't connect to them, we'd just be the owners of a pile of junk." Mike shrugged a shoulder. "Realistically, we should be more concerned with the power system of the base, if it's operational, if it can handle more than a couple robots. They aren't solar-powered; they'll have to recharge their energy cells if they are operational, at least once every 24 hours. If there is working power at the base, then we need to know that the draw on the generator isn't going to cause some sort of catastrophic explosion, once we start utilizing the place as a home."

"I vote that we keep the robots, if we can," Pesaro said, "and if anyone needs to pinch something from the Vault... I will look the other way, for now. Just try to keep the thievery simple." He looked at Mike. "Leave anything we don't need, and certainly don't go taking things that the Vault might need."

"Let's talk about the people who will scout the base," Calhoun said. "If we send the right team, we can go ahead and disable the robots before we get into any serious planning. If nothing pans out, we'll be able to scavenge the robots for parts and make some capital for rebuilding in another location."

Everyone agreed. Pesaro pointed out that Calhoun, as former Overseer, shouldn't go. "My job is to keep the entire group safe," he said, "and if we lost our 'boss', we'd be lost to the wastes in a very short time."

"I was hoping I could be there for the first look," Calhoun said, disappointed.

"It's still too dangerous, Calhoun."

He conceded. "Well, who will go, then?"

Pesaro looked at Ed. "You can teach other people to disable these things?"

"Yes, with the manual. It's not something you can just pick up on your own. Even Celia had to read the manual for the Handys before she embarked on that... terror campaign of hers." Ed sighed in disapproval.

Calhoun chuckled. "I'd forgotten about that. Every other day, wasn't it?"

"Oh, I remember now." Mike shook his head. "Disabling the Handys in the medical clinic was the worst of it."

"She said she was fighting off robot invaders from Mars," Calhoun said, remembering. "It was pretty funny until she actually took the Handys offline." He smiled to himself. Yes, he rather liked Celia, he thought, because that inventiveness of hers was entertaining.

"The little snot finally has an applicable skill," Pesaro muttered.

_"Hey,"_ Ed said, "she might be a snot, but she's still my sister. She was ten, for crap's sake."

"I caught her spiking Mr. O'Nan's coffee with Mavis Pottin's horrid perfume once," Mike said.

"I caught you cherry bombing the Overseer's personal toliet, once," Pesaro said, eyeing Mike, who flushed red. "At any rate, it would be a good idea to include her in the scouting team. She's sneaky, and we need that."

"Where is Celia?" Ed asked, looking around.

"She... went somewhere else after having a issue with management," Calhoun said. "I will have a talk with her, when she cools down. Speaking of which, it's rather hot in here..."

He excused himself from the table, and walked outside for some fresh air. The girl was nowhere in sight. He sighed, looked up. The sky was lit up with brilliant stars. _I hope she listened to me,_ he thought. _I really do need her help._

* * *

Celia felt the chill deep in her bones, crawling up her back, and along her scalp. How did anything grow here? When the heat-blasted day was gone, the world felt frozen in the light of the moon. Her teeth were chattering by the time she'd made it halfway to Grayling.

She fought sleep the whole way, but when her eyelids started to force themselves shut she had to make a choice. Sleeping out in the open was just not an option. The road blurred in front of her, and her head spun. Yes, she had to find somewhere to bunker down.

She shivered, looked around. _There,_ she thought, _that car._ She went to the door, but the handle was stuck shut. _Figures._ She leaned into it through the window, and pulled herself inside.

She curled up on the front seat, looking out at the stars in the sky. _What am I doing?_ she thought. _I'm going to get myself killed. _

Sleep overtook her, before she could bother to answer.

* * *

Lionel was surprised that Lilian had come back-he'd nearly convinced himself that she was dead. She sat at the table, drinking a bottle of water, giving him the stink eye. She was furious with him for yelling at her, and he was furious with himself. He'd lost his composure at having her home, acted foolishly. He didn't know why he got so angry when he couldn't say what he wanted to say.

He'd also been angry at that stupid little girl, who forced him to watch her dogging him all the way from Grayling. He could have just walked off into the wastes and lost her, but Dr. Jen's words echoed in his head. "Couldn't hurt to make friends."

He ignored Lilian's glare and thought about "friends" and what it meant. Jen was a friend. But she was Lilian's daughter, too, so he didn't know if she could be counted. Lionel hadn't been good at making friends, even back in the day. Never had a problem attracting ladies, though. He smiled at Lilian, fondly. Even though she'd thrown the radio at him, all the anger dissolved from his mind. He forgave her, without question, for having run off.

"You're mad at me," he said, calmly. "We have all the time in the world. You'll get over it." He wouldn't apologize for being mean. Lionel didn't make a habit of saying sorry, even if he was at fault.

Later, when he laid himself down on the mattress and pushed himself against the wall, she let the glare fade. She broke the silence in the room with a scoff and said, "You're a cad, Lionel."

"As long as _you're_ saying that," he said, sleepily, "I think I can handle it."

Life went back to normal.


	8. His Fear

In the morning, Celia woke when a ray of light fell across her eyes. She pried her fingers open, having clenched her fists in her sleep, and held them up to the sun, waiting for them to thaw. It didn't take long for the wastes to warm up.

A wave of gold swept across the land, transforming the darkness into a pleasant morning. She sat in the car until the sun had risen completely. Inside the Vault, she'd never had the chance to see the sun like it was today, flying up into the sky like some sort of red-hot balloon. She _had_ felt as lonely, before. She didn't much care for the company the Vault offered.

The whole wide world was open to her now, but she felt a sudden strong desire to run back to the Vault. The long corridors lit by Simu-Sun, the hiding spots she'd discovered deep in the closets of her brother's married living quarters, even the unused storage rooms that she would set her fairy kingdoms and space adventures in, that was her world. Not this limitless waste, with real monsters and people she didn't have to make up to have a conversation with.

She'd ruled the roost in the lower levels of the Vault, while she was supposed to be at school and Ed and Ann had been working. She missed her mother, who had died when she was four.

The fires had claimed so many lives... Celia changed her mind. She'd rather not be back there.

Her father had been the very first to leave the Vault, almost nineteen years earlier. He'd never returned. All she knew of him was family photos and what Ed bothered to answer when she asked. It wasn't much. Ed didn't think very highly of Cameron Landis. ...Even the family records were sparing of his person. Celia felt a funny sort of kinship to the black sheep reputation that she seemed to share with him. Apples and trees, she guessed.

She resolved that she wouldn't die in the wastes, like he had. Like Bobby Perkins had, after him. She might be alone now, and a loner by choice, but she didn't need to rely on anyone to stay alive. She was stubborn. She could make it.

The sun had moved higher before she wiggled out of the car and stepped into the bog it was stuck into. Immediately, she covered her mouth and gagged at the smell. Oh, it was like someone took a dead thing and mixed it in a bubbling pot with stinky socks and armpit hair. She paused, and the smell faded. _It must be in the ground, when I step,_ she thought.

She trod off to the edge of the bog and listened to the squelching of her boots. Something painful suddenly hit her leg, and she stumbled forward.

Looking back, she saw two mutated flies the size of someone's head, projectiles flying from their rears at her. She yelped, covered her head, and ran up to the road, away from them. Her leg stung fiercely, swelling up to twice its size, but she did not stop. If there were more of those things out there, with more horrible defenses, she did _not_ want to find them.

* * *

The gate guard let her in, chuckling. "Ronnie said you wouldn't be back," he told her. "Man, I owe him five caps."

Celia ignored him, pushed her hair out of her eyes, and walked off to ask Dr. Jen about the fly things. She tripped on the pieces of asphalt and gravel that lay haphazard in the streets, her leg still sounding off like an alarm.

"Dr. Jen?" she asked, pushing open the clinic door. The clinic was mostly intact, with an operating room, office room, and open area where patients were seen. Dr. Jen stuck her head out of the office and waved Celia into it.

"Coffee?" she asked. Celia accepted a cup and drank, but made a face.

"Is it, really?" she asked, frowning.

"It's similar, according to Lionel," Jen said. She turned her eyes, covered with big glasses, onto the girl. "What's up?"

"Uh, I ran into some kind of fly, outside the gates..."

"Bloatfly stings are not poisonous," Jen said. "They just hurt like hell. Did you spend all night out there? Calhoun was looking for you here."

"In a car by the road," Celia answered. "I was trying to give Lionel some advice on dealing with Calhoun."

Jen laughed. "He'd listen to advice just as well as an Brahmin would understand words," she said. "I admire your stubbornness, though. Keep it up."

"He had a visitor, I guess," Celia told her. "Sounded like a woman, but with that ghoul-sound in the throat?"

"Well!" Jen threw her hands up. "Lilian is back."

The girl looked up at the doctor. "Who _is_ Lilian? Lionel mentioned her, when I first met him. But he didn't seem to want to talk about her."

"He wouldn't, really," Jen said, refilling her own cup, then Celia's. "He's a very private person. Lionel and Lilian have a strange relationship. He keeps her safe, feeds her, keeps her company. She keeps him from going feral." A smile played across the woman's face. "She's irritating, sometimes, but I think you'll like her."

Celia brooded over her cup. "...What is this feral thing? Lionel said something about it, but... not much."

Jen sighed, crossed her legs, and sat back in her chair. She didn't speak for a moment or two, looking at her fingernails in thought. "When a ghoul absorbs too much radiation," she began, "they begin to change even more. It's―well―they lose their minds, and become like animals. Feral ghouls are dangerous and are shot on sight." She picked up her cup, blew on the liquid inside. "No one really know how it all works. Lionel is terrified of going feral."

Celia snorted. "He doesn't have much love for ants, either."

"That's more prudence than any fear." Jen looked at her pointedly. "You should be mindful of that."

"...Is Lilian a ghoul, too?" Celia asked, trying to get back to the subject.

Jen nodded. "Much, much younger than him. She used to be the mayor's sister here in town. About ten years ago, she started the change, and Mayor Harper kicked her out of town. Lionel took her in, when I asked him to." She grimaced. "We kicked Harper out, too, after everyone got sick of him and his crony Swanton taking advantage of us."

"Do people really hate ghouls like that?"

"People hate for all kinds of reasons, Celia. Don't let that affect your judgement of ghouls in general, or either of our local ones. Both are good people, even if some don't think they qualify."

Celia thought about it for a moment. "I don't think I'd mind being a ghoul," she said, looking down at her cup. "If people would let me be."

"Don't wish for it," Jen said. "It's painful in both physical and emotional aspects, and you _can't_ go back. Lilian was so distraught when she wasn't allowed into town, I thought she might try to kill herself." She looked into the air, darkly.

Celia drained her cup, thanked the doctor, and got ready to leave. "Wait," Jen stopped her at the door. "Before you leave. Don't spend another night outside of town, okay? It's more dangerous than you realize."

"Yes, ma'am," she said, subdued. She gave the doctor a wave and went "home" to the common house.


	9. Her Embarrassment

Celia slowly walked back to the common house. She dreaded the reception she would get. She would probably get eaten alive by her sister-in-law. Ann seemed to think it was her job to make Celia a more productive member of society, teach her the manners she thought Celia lacked, and otherwise interfere in her life like a nosey parker.

_Worse than having an enemy!_ She was like the mother Celia never had. Or _wanted._

"You rotten girl!" Ann said, stopping her before she entered the common house. "Ed worried about you all night!"

_"You_ didn't, I'm sure," Celia said, snidely, and kept walking as Ann stood with her mouth open. She adjusted her outfit and smoothed her hair back, then opened the door and went inside.

Calhoun spotted her first. He pulled her by an arm to a corner and pointed his finger at her. "We need everyone here, Celia," he said, chidingly. "Can't you try to play along, for once?"

She shrugged, looked away. "I guess."

His face softened, then, and he leaned forward a little. "Look..." He paused and rubbed his chin with a strange look on his face. "Ed isn't the _only_ person who worries about you, you know."

He abruptly walked away, leaving her startled and confused.

Before she had time to comprehend, her brother found her and she was crushed in an awkward half-hug-half-grapple. Her apologies weren't much salve on Ed's wounded pride as he explained to her she couldn't just run off like that. She listened patiently, but didn't say much about it. _I'll do what I want, thank you,_ she thought. _I'm old enough. I'm grown-up, now._

She rolled her eyes at his lecture, trying to be patient. After, Ed told her about the plan to scout the military base. "Scouting and disarming?" she asked. "What about all the _things_ out there? The creatures?"

Calhoun jerked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the door. "Mayor Rowland tells me that there are mercenary crews who sweep for creatures, out in the wastes. We shouldn't have to worry about that." He looked up from his Pip-Boy, meeting her muddy eyes with his shining black ones.

She looked away, feeling blood rise into her cheeks. His words ran through her head again, causing her to full-out blush. She breathed carefully, trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with her.

"Your job would be to sneak around and try to disable the robots," Ed said. "Report on how many there are at the base, take them down if possible, but don't take risks. These aren't robot invaders from Mars."

"You remember too well," she said, grumpily. She'd gotten into _so_ much trouble for her childhood exploits. This time, though, it wouldn't be pretend. Celia wasn't dumb enough to think _that._

"Mike went back to pick up a few things from the Vault," Calhoun put in. "When he gets back, you get that Mister Handy specification manual and you figure out how to disable them without getting shot."

"The base should have power, if the robots are up and moving. If we can get to the maintenance wing, Mike will force a site-wide shut down of the bots," Ed added. "Then we'll collect and reprogram them."

_"If_ Mike can come up with some ingenious wiring solutions," Officer Pesaro said. Celia jumped, startled. She hadn't seen him standing there. Pesaro had always scared her a little, since he only showed up around her when she was in trouble.

Just like the time she'd disabled the robots. She made a face. He'd nearly made her pee her pants, coming up on her while she was "fighting" off the "invaders" in the clinic at the Vault. She shot the security officer a nervous glance out of the corner of her eye.

"First, though, you should all observe the layout of the buildings, so no one gets cornered. Don't go anywhere alone." Calhoun unlatched his Pip-Boy and waved to the room. "I think we ought to sell our Pip-Boys. We need caps for weapons."

The room filled with noise, outraged cries and a few surprised "What?" yelps. Celia moved away, sitting down in a corner. She felt a little sick to her stomach from nerves. She'd never been important enough to include in major plans like this, before.

No one paid her any attention, and she was grateful for that. Gave her time to think about what was going on.

What the heck did Calhoun mean by that remark? She mused to herself, hand in her chin. She was pretty sure he'd just declared his feelings for her in a subtle way. Calhoun was too svelte to come straight out and say what he meant. She sighed. She knew he'd been married once, about twelve or so years ago. Celia didn't remember his wife, at all. Since her death, the young people of the Vault had assumed that he was not "into" women. He'd never remarried.

If this had been any of the boys her own age, she would have given them a straight, "No, thank you." She steeled herself. She didn't want that kind of attention, not from Calhoun, not from anyone. Didn't need it, it only confused her.

The group argued about selling their Pip-Boys, but eventually decided that anyone who wasn't using theirs could choose whether or not to sell them. Celia kept hers. It had too many interesting stories on it for her to give up. Plus, she was going on the scouting mission, she'd probably need it.

Later, Celia was handed a heavy pistol. She'd tried to refuse, but Pesaro said she was going with the scouts, and she would be armed. She got the feeling that she couldn't argue. She sat with it in her lap, weighing down her legs. Didn't like the thought that she might have to shoot something.

"Come on, Celia," Calhoun said, extending a hand to her. "Let's go practice. You've never held a gun before, right?"

She shook her head, and nervously followed him outside. A few of the young men had gathered up various bits of trash and lined the tin cans and bottles in a row for targets along the town dump. Pesaro examined everyone's weapon, showed them how to set the safety on and off, instructed them on how to securely hold the pistols and rifles, and finally ordered them to practice.

Shots echoed out for a few minutes. No one got shot, but a few pinched fingers were had. Celia ended up flat on her ass, at least once. "Can't I just get a baseball bat or something?" she asked, roughly. The pistol had a surprising kick and she wasn't used to it yet.

Calhoun winked at her, watching from the sidelines. "I'll see what I can do."

"Never mind," she said, and looked away. _Oh, why?_

"You weren't that bad," he said, following her back to the common house once the practice was over. "Shouldn't look so down in the dumps. We just came from there." A smile twitched on his face.

She ignored him and moved away, finding a corner of the room to sit in. If this had been the Vault, she would have packed enough lunches for three or four days and disappeared into the maintenance wing. She couldn't do that, here. _Probably get stung by a bloatfly again,_ she grumbled to herself.

_We all need a place to go,_ she thought._ Being this close together... we're only going to drive each other mad. I might have to go back to the Vault just to get him to stop chasing me._

She shot the Overseer a glance and saw him watching her with that funny little smile on his face. Quickly, she looked away again and flushed. It was embarrassing to have so much attention heaped on her, all of a sudden. She really _did_ want to run away, get the heck out of town.

She wouldn't, though. She was too scared to face the wastes alone, again.


	10. A Much Nicer View

The sun rose over the edge of the world for the third time before Lionel bothered to wonder if Celia had made it back to Grayling. He didn't feel guilty. She didn't have to follow him two hours away from town, out into the wastes. He might have let her stay the night in the shack again, if Lilian hadn't shown up. But the girl needed to learn that this world was cruel and heartless, just as he'd had to learn. The hard way, too.

Lionel mentioned that there were new people in Grayling. He could see the starry-eyed look that Lilian got in her eyes, hear the excitement in her raspy voice. "Imagine _that,"_ she cooed, dreamily. "A real Vault, somewhere around here. And full of actual people, not just assholes or our kind."

"Most people are assholes," he countered, fiddling with the radio wires. He'd almost gotten it to work that morning, but it only picked up static. "Their Overseer is definitely one."

"Let's go and meet them!" Lilian said. She put a hand on his arm.

"Already met 'em," he grumbled. But he put away the radio. He wasn't about to let her traipse off into the wastes again, on her own. He gathered up his things and they went off to Grayling.

Lilian's laughter rang through the trees, as they walked. She talked about everything and anything that remotely looked interesting, and speculated about the Vault dwellers. Lionel smiled, pacified to hear her voice. He was very glad she was back; he melted like an ice cube when she was around. Even her raspy singing voice made him feel fifty years younger.

"Tell me more about them?" she asked.

"Like what?" He turned an eye to watch a bloatfly bouncing away from them, toward the south.

"How many of them are there? Who are they? What are they like?" she gushed.

"You'll find out," he rasped. "I'd just ruin the surprise."

"Oh, you're _right,"_ she agreed, and laughed at him.

Lilian was still very popular in Grayling, something Lionel hadn't managed. The two ghouls were stopped frequently as they walked through the streets, until Lionel put his heels in and refused to move. "Go talk to people, already," he grumbled. "I'll be here."

He never asked her where she went when she left him. She hardly ever volunteered anything, and he was content to let it lie. Worked better that way. _Ignorance is bliss,_ Lionel thought. That made him remember the Vault girl and he wondered where she was.

Lilian spoke with the red-haired woman about a place called Samson. Lionel's legs ached as he stood, watching her with a smile. If he couldn't talk to people... at least _she_ could.

"Oh, thank goodness," a voice behind him said.

He grunted. _Answered that question, anyway._ He turned to face Celia. "Survived the night, I see," he rumbled.

She hopped down from the Mayor's front porch, coming to a halt beside him. "Yeah, I'm lucky," she replied. "...Is that Lilian?" she asked, pointing at the ghoul woman.

He nodded. "She's come to meet real, live, Vault dwellers."

Celia didn't reply for a moment. She looked like she was thinking very hard about something. Lionel found it a little amusing, the way her face screwed up in concern.

"Can you talk to Calhoun about taking us out to the military base?" she asked, abruptly. "I'm getting tired of everyone arguing about it."

He looked at her from the corner of his eye. There was a cut above her right eye, various smears of dirt on her ever-browning skin, and a few stains on her knees. _Farming,_ he thought. _Been busy. Good on her._

Didn't really want to face down the asshole again, though. He'd rubbed Lionel the wrong way, the last time. He looked back at Lilian and then faced Celia. "That one does what he wants," he said, roughly. "Don't see how I can change any minds."

Celia's face fell in disappointment. _Ah, shit._ Lilian would give him hell if he didn't try to help these people. _Her and her bleeding heart._

"Lilian!" he called, without taking his eyes off of Celia's face.

The ghoul woman took her time moseying back. The air between them grew awkward. He sighed in relief when Lilian finally came over, her eyes lit up with excitement.

"Oh!" she said. "I thought you'd be paler." She put her hand to her mouth, in embarrassment. "Gosh, I'm sorry."

"Why?" Celia asked, shaking out her arms. "I was. Been working in the sun."

Lilian looked embarrassed, still. "She means she's sorry for assuming," Lionel teased. "Queen of the land of Foot-in-Mouth, over here."

Both of them looked at him. "Lionel!" they said, scolding him at the same time, then looked at each other curiously.

That was his cue to leave. As happy as he was to have Lilian back, he didn't need to be chewed out for being playful at the wrong time. Didn't know how the girl would react. "I'm going for a drink," he grumbled, and meandered off, leaving them to talk.

* * *

"Tell me again _why_ it would be such a bad idea, to have the ghoul escort us?" Calhoun asked for the third time that day. He kept hoping Pesaro would come up with a better excuse.

His hopes were dashed, almost immediately. "I don't have a problem with him," Pesaro said, "but he makes me nervous. He wants paid. How are we supposed to afford it?"

Calhoun stared at the gray-haired older man, wondering how he could disguise his obvious detest for the ghoul. Outside of the Vault, Pesaro had become stubborn and intractable. _When we get our new home, I need a detention center,_ he thought, grumbling. "You think he won't take something in trade? We aren't completely untrustworthy, Pesaro."

"We need everything we can get, remember, Overseer?" Ed said, snarkily.

Calhoun shot him a look. "You Landises," he said. "Quick to a fight, but never end one."

Ed sputtered, unused to the temper. Calhoun sighed. "We're learning, here. We need the young ones in the fields, learning how to farm. We need Ida in with Dr. Jen, Benjamin out with Holcomb in the garage. The only people who haven't been working is you, me, and Ann. We need to learn how to deal with unpleasantries such as... ghouls."

Pesaro curled up his lip. "What if the ghoul decides he wants to live where we are?"

"I doubt it. Celia says his house is hidden very well above the dry lake bed." Calhoun raised an eyebrow at the security officer. His veneer was cracking. He couldn't hide it, after all.

"He does get taken advantage of," Ed said. "Holcomb mentioned that he's right terrible with money, and gets fleeced a lot. What if he wants more than we can offer?"

"I don't think he's smart enough to figure out if we were cheating him," Calhoun drawled.

The men looked at each other for a moment. "You may have a point," Pesaro said, "but I don't want him getting close to any of us. Especially not the girl. She doesn't think straight."

"He's not contagious!" Calhoun said. "Dr. Jen was specific about that."

The security officer only crossed his arms and asked, "But are _you_ sure?"

Behind him, the door to the common area opened, and Celia entered with someone trailing behin her. "Hello? Who's this, Celia?" Calhoun asked, craning his neck to see.

_Oh good Lord,_ he thought, when he saw the female ghoul. She was... in better condition than brawny old man, but still terrible to look at. He didn't think he would want to have a ghoul around for very long. Looked like a walking horror scene with those exposed muscles, tattered skin, and patchy hair. _Oh god! She_ did_ have hair!_

Celia introduced the woman. "This is Jack Calhoun. Overseer Calhoun, this is Lilian Harper."

It was like she'd dissolved halfway, and baked in an enormous oven for too long. He suppressed his flip-flopping stomach, and managed to give her a quick peck on the hand offered out to him. Pesaro suddenly found something else to do, in a different place. The door slammed behind him. The ghoul didn't seem to notice.

"Miss Harper?" Calhoun asked, offering her a seat. She sat, and smiled gruesomely.

"Oh, he's a _gentleman,"_ she rasped, and winked at Celia. The effect made his stomach flop again. "I'm so happy to have new people around."

"Lilian stays with Lionel," Celia said, quietly.

"Ah, yes. Our grumpy friend." Calhoun sat down across from Lilian.

_"Friend!"_ Lilian laughed. It sounded to Calhoun like a power saw going through a sheet of metal. "Lionel doesn't have _friends."_

Celia parked herself on a couch. "Dr. Jen says we shouldn't give up on him, since he's such a crummy jerk. Says he needs the help as much as we do."

The power saw sounded again. "He's such a mess when I go away," Lilian said. She looked bashfully at Calhoun. "He's quite old, you know. I've only been on this earth for sixty years. I'm quite young compared to him."

"Sixty?" Calhoun said, coyly. "I would have guessed forty."

Celia stiffened and looked down. Lilian was flustered. "Oh," she said, nervously.

"Has Celia told you that we'd like the old lion's help?" Calhoun asked, smiling.

"Yes," Lilian said. "I admire your tenacity. I know you will do fine, if he helps. I will talk to him."

"You're a doll, Lilian," Calhoun said, smiling wider.

"And you're too much, _Jack,"_ she said, and patted his hand with a smile.

Lilian stayed a little while longer, speaking to Ed and Ann. "Celia has such wit," she told them. "She reminds me of my daughter."

"Back home, we called it being snarky," Ed said, being serious. "She's a right pain in the _behind,_ that one."

"Edward!" Ann said, horrified. Calhoun found it amusing that Ann's disgust at Lilian's physical appearance was only trumped by her love for propriety. Celia pointedly ignored the comments, staring at a tin can in her hands.

The visit was cut short when Lionel retrieved Lilian, shaking his head as he escorted her away. Calhoun watched them leave, thankful the view had dramatically improved.

No, he didn't want to have the ghouls around, if he could avoid it. He looked over at Celia. Not when the view was much _nicer,_ without them around.


	11. Virtue

Calhoun let out a long breath once he was sure the ghouls were gone, and invited Celia to come outside with him. "We'll let Ed and Ann have a little alone time," he said, conspiratorially. Celia sighed, defeated, and walked outside with him.

They went along the town wall, dull metal looming above their heads. Celia tossed the can up and over the wall, then shuffled her feet angrily. "I wish you wouldn't _do_ that," she said.

"Do what?" He asked, innocently, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his Brahmin-skin outfit. It was itchy and rough, but kept one cool in the hot light of day.

"Manipulate people," she said. "Make them do what you want."

"It's my job," he countered. "Leading people is much easier, if they already want to be led."

"It's not honest," she replied. "No one will trust you, if they think you're lying to them."

Calhoun laughed, hooked her arm, and pulled her to face him. She backed away, into the wall, and he leaned on an elbow above her head. Tilting his eyes down to look at her, he murmured, "Out here, _is_ honesty still a virtue?"

She looked down, crossed her arms over her chest, and muttered, "Maybe not."

"Let's change the subject," he said, and brushed a curl out of her eyes. "How are you doing?"

Celia's cheeks reddened violently. "I'm fine, thank you," she said, nervously.

He smiled at the sight. She was on the ropes, now. "If you have a problem, you come tell me, okay?" She nodded, just barely. "If anyone bothers you..."

"I'll be fine, thank you, Overseer," she said, and moved away from him, walking along the wall.

Calhoun grinned to himself, feeling a lot better. _Check that off my list,_ he laughed to himself. He felt a lot better, having aired his dirty laundry. Getting that walking horror show to eat from the palm of his hand was also satisfying. He walked off, whistling to himself. Things were starting to look up.

* * *

Lionel agreed to lead the scout team to the military base, and begrudgingly agreed to let them pay when they were able. Celia was amazed at the change of attitude he evinced, once Lilian had returned. There was no anger, no mean laughter, no grumpiness, just a silly old man in love.

Idly, she wondered why Lilian would ever leave. It was pretty clear the effect the woman had on the old ghoul. She noticed Calhoun watching her and colored. _Never mind,_ she thought.

The men arranged the gear, and Calhoun saw the group away from Grayling with their guns rattling across their backs and empty sacks blowing in the wind. There was no extra food to take with them, so the anticipation of getting to the base was palpable. If they didn't find anything there, they would go hungry for the next two to three days. Celia had lost a lot of weight, already. She'd seen ribs sticking out of her side, when she dressed.

The flat of the road stretched out in front of her, the wind picking up as it barreled through the rocks to either side. It was warmer than the day before had been, and she had shorter legs than all four men. She had to jog to keep up with them. Simon and Pesaro were arguing, and she only half-listened. The sweat running down her back distracted her.

"Why did I get a stupid pistol?" Simon asked. "I wanted a _rifle!"_

This went on for some time, until Celia was so hot and sweaty that she couldn't stand it. Her arms were tired from the Brahmin-milking, crop-tending, back-breaking farming she'd been doing for the last month. "Shut _up,"_ she muttered, pushing her hair out of her face.

"I agree," Mike Rind said. "You're flogging a dead horse."

Simon shot them a look. "We're nearly there," Lionel rasped. "Over these hills."

Everyone grew quiet as they walked up the slight incline, stopping once the walls of the buildings were in sight. A chain link fence stretched in between two mortared walls, blocking some of the view, but a large white building and several smaller bunk houses could be seen. There was an open courtyard with the road leading to the main building in a curve with plenty of room to run, if they needed. Motion across the court brought them the first sighting of the robots. The group ducked out of sight behind the hill.

"Protectrons," Celia said. "And a military model Handy―err, Mister Gutsy." She pointed at Simon. "You sneak up on the Protectron. They're slow enough, you shouldn't have a problem. I'll take on the Gutsy."

Without another word, she disappeared over the hill and ducked through the chain link fence. She heard someone griping behind her, and ignored it. Slinking around a fancy sign that was about hip-height, she moved towards the Gutsy.

She saw Simon squeeze through the fence, and charge at the Protectron. The Gutsy turned and registered Simon's existence, and began to move away from her. Dashing forward, she pulled her screwdriver out. She scaled the hovering robot, pried open the casing with a quick pop, and disabled it by jabbing a thumb onto the manual shutdown button. The Gutsy jerked, shuddered to a stop, and she collapsed on top of it as it fell to the ground.

Once she'd gotten up, she moved low across the court toward Simon. He was walking in a circle around the Protectron, trying to avoid the lasers it was shooting. It sounded a warning, and she rolled her eyes. "C'mon, Simon!" she said, and levered the casing open while it was distracted by the teenager. Its hands spun in the air, slowing, then stopped fully.

Simon's eyes were wide, staring at Celia. She pushed him back toward the others. "Good job, Landis," Pesaro said, fixing her with an appreciative look.

"How about you guys follow me and _try_ to keep an eye out?" she said, grumpily.

"Could you stay in sight at all times?" Pesaro asked, a knowing smile on his face. Celia ignored him.

"Let her go," Lionel said. "Simon and me, we'll walk the fence. You guys go through." He made a loud grating noise that she supposed was clearing his throat.

Pesaro nodded and said, "We'll meet up on the other end of the yard."

Celia went ahead of Mike and Pesaro, crouch-walking slowly across the courtyard to the north. The three moved around the buildings, sweeping the yard, and disabled a few more Protectrons. Pesaro kept a tally of the robots that they'd disabled, fences and other things in need of repair, and how many buildings were usable. "Let's check the main building over there," Pesaro said, once they'd met back up with Lionel and Simon.

"Wait," Celia said. "Robots in there might be more difficult. Let me refresh my memory." She set her pack down and sat on a slab of concrete, pulling out the manual.

"Everyone take a breather, then," Pesaro said.

Lionel parked himself on the ground near Celia, looking with interest at the pictures in the manual. "I had an aunt, had a Protectron in her office building," he said.

She was grateful for the conversation. Between Simon's dumb comments, Pesaro's nagging, and Mike's overall snottiness, she needed a friendly face. Celia turned to him, the manual across her knees, and showed him the picture of the Protectron. "Maybe we can get one of these guys for you," she said, smiling at him. "Would that be adequate recompensation?"

Lionel didn't reply, staring at the pictures in the book. He pointed at a diagram of the energy cell that powered the robots. "What is that?"

Celia tried to explain that all the robots ran on energy cells powered by an electrical reaction. She wasn't _entirely_ familiar with how they worked, but she knew the basics. Lionel didn't seem to understand at all. He pleaded out after a few minutes, claimed he was getting a headache. Simon grinned and made a stupid face. Celia glared at him and shut the book with a snap.

"I'm ready," she said to Pesaro. She looked up at the cracked wall. "Let's get in there and clear it out."

"I appreciate your gung-ho attitude," Pesaro said, "but let's take it slow."

"Lead on, Commander Pesaro," she said in a mocking tone.

He shot her a sour look as they entered the building.


	12. Camp Grayling

The outside of the main building was white in color, the faded and peeling paint flaking off onto the ground. Cracked cinder blocks and weathered metal doors made up the face, stretching upward about ten or twelve feet. A chain and padlock had been wound through the big doors, preventing the group from entering there.

"Once we get these guys reprogrammed," Mike said, waving a hand at the Mister Gutsy nearby, "we can have them cut through it. Let's look for another way."

Celia stared up at the wall, at the faded letters printed onto it. Couldn't read it; the letters were indecipherable from the bombs and the ravage of time. Windows in the building were smashed in or boarded up as she peered in, but the gloom was impenetrable. Nothing they could do but get in there, somehow.

Simon found a small side door and the men pried it open with effort. Lionel waited outside. "Plan B?" he asked.

"Run like hell," Pesaro said, seriously. Lionel laughed.

Simon and Pesaro went left, so Celia and Mike went right. Two small offices on the left, and one larger one on the right hand side, contained small goods that she scooped into her pack as they searched. Cigarettes, pencils, a few fission batteries. A few empty bottles and tin cans that she could get at least one cap for. Around the corner of the hallway, Mike opened a door cautiously and peered in. He backed off quickly and shut it. "There's a big one in there," he hissed.

"Let me see," Celia said. She opened the door a crack and looked around.

"Scanning," a robotic voice echoed in the darkness.

She pulled the door shut, gently. "Sentry bot," she said. "Makes sense, though. Looks like the armory. Lots of guns."

"I am _not_ going toe-to-toe with a gatling laser," Mike said.

"I could make a distraction, and you could sneak up on it," she offered. "If you'd _prefer."_

"We should wait for Pesaro," Mike replied, shooting her an annoyed look.

"You wanna run down the hall and fetch him?" she asked, snippily.

He gave her a look of exasperation. "Don't be so cavalier. These are military-grade robots. Any one of them could kill all four of us, if we aren't careful."

Celia rolled her eyes. "Figures," she said to herself.

"What?" he asked, testily.

"I finally have a way to make myself useful, and I can't even _do_ that," she said, grumpily.

"You've been useful all day!" Mike said. "Now shut up. Let's go find Pesaro."

She followed, shuffling her feet. Mike led the way back to where the team had split up, and went through the doors at the end of the hallway. They opened into a cafeteria of some kind with a set of double doors on the opposite side and a small door on the left, several tables and chairs scattered through the room, and a vending machine overturned in the right-hand corner. Pesaro was huddled behind the vending machine, his body shielding Simon.

_"Danger!"_ he yelled, and Mike ducked behind the closest table. Celia watched the Gutsy floating around the tables. It followed Mike's movement; she sprinted behind it when it turned, jumping onto the back. Getting up the frame was the easy part.

There was damage to the rear access panel on this robot. She had trouble getting the screwdriver to fit where it needed to, to lever it out. She pushed down hard on the handle, and the piece of metal popped out, flying off to the right. Mike yelled something about her being stupid, but she ignored him.

Just as she pressed the shutdown button, the Gutsy brought around the circular saw attached to one of its arms and pressed it to her back. She shrieked, and both girl and 'bot fell to the ground with the saw embedded into her back. Pain spread through her shoulder too quickly for her to feel it―crap, the last thing she needed was to go into shock.

"Mike!" Pesaro yelled.

Mike was at her side quickly, removing the saw with a jerk. He applied pressure to the wound, pushing her into the floor. "Have we found any med-x?" he asked, looking over at Pesaro.

"Some―in my pack," she gasped out. "Is S-Simon...?"

From across the room, Pesaro shook his head. He found her sack where she'd dropped it and shook out the goods, tossing Mike a needle. "What happened, Celia?" he asked, as he came closer. He eye the Gutsy dubiously.

"The back panel―_ah!_―was damaged," she said through gritted teeth. Mike jabbed the needle into her shoulder and depressed the plunger. "I couldn't get it to budge."

"We have to leave, _now,"_ Pesaro said. "This is a bad wound. We'll bury Simon, later."

"How did―" she asked, glancing at the teenager's body. He was roughly the same age as her. Now he was dead. She was shocked.

"Never mind that," Pesaro said. "Up and at 'em."

Lionel had been standing in a darkened corner in the courtyard. When they came from the building, he stirred and approached them. His face crinkled at the wound. "Damn, kid."

"Is it bad?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I ain't no medic. You're bleeding like a stuck pig." He grunted, looking up at the men. "Got anything to bind it? Gotta stop the blood."

No one could find anything to tie around her chest, so Pesaro went inside and removed Simon's shirt from his body. Once she was bound up and starting to get dizzy, Lionel asked, "Who's gonna carry her?"

"I can walk," she said, stubbornly. But she wasn't sure, really. The pain was fading but she was very lightheaded and wobbly.

"I am _not_ that strong," Mike said, speaking over her voice. Celia believed him, he was thin as a rope. And Pesaro was a little too old to be carrying her, even if she had been losing weight―she sighed. She _would_ have to walk.

"I can walk," she repeated, blinking slowly. The med-x was taking effect.

"Not with that much blood loss," Lionel told her. "You'll pass out on the road." He turned around, crouched down. "Come on, kid."

She hesitated. "I don't want to be carried," she said, sounding like a child. A spasm ran through her back, causing her to shudder. She suddenly felt very sleepy. She wasn't―like _Pesaro,_ she wasn't like that. But she didn't feel right taking a piggyback ride from Lionel. He was at least three times older than Pesaro.

"If you wait, you will die," he rumbled, matter-of-factly. "Come on, kid, my knees are killing me."

Celia didn't feel like arguing, anymore. She leaned forward onto the ghoul's back, one arm around his neck and the other dangling at his side, uselessly. He hooked his arms around her knees, stood up, and started to trudge off. "Let's go, then," he said.

She felt giddy, a haze settling on her brain. That was the medicine, she thought. Lionel's neck was dry against her arm, like touching tree bark. The bone she'd seen exposed, before, poked at her. But it wasn't unpleasant. He was awful warm, too. Felt like a heating pad on her front, pressed into his back. It was comfortable and her eyes began to close.

_He's a good person even if he's a grumpy old codger,_ she told herself, before she passed out across his back.


	13. Tension

Simon Stockton's death brought home the reality of the dangers of the wastes, to the people from the Vault. Calhoun gave a speech about the boy, directing praise onto him for bravery. Darla and Jim watched him speak with tear-filled eyes, clinging to one another. "Our new home is within reach, thanks to this strong young man. We must carry on, in his memory." He dismissed the group.

He nodded to Pesaro. Jim and Darla were being comforted by the others, giving him time to slip away. Pesaro followed him into an alley between the buildings.

"Other than Simon's unfortunate death," Calhoun said, leaning on the wall, "how did we fare?"

"There was trouble,"Pesaro said, serious in tone. "Celia took a circular saw to the back, and there was a sentry bot that we weren't able to disable."

"Is she alright?" Calhoun asked.

"She'll be fine, I'm sure," Pesaro said. "The Gutsy had damage to the rear access panel. An unavoidable injury." He made a disgusted face. "The ghoul carried her back, you know. He didn't even ask if _I_ would carry her."

"One can only hope he was being conscious of your age," Calhoun said, then gave a wry chuckle at the implication.

"I don't like him getting so close to her. He's been paying specific attention to the girl." Pesaro's face was hard, his tone forbidding. "She only has Ed to protect her, and he's too busy to keep an eye out."

"From what I hear, Lionel tends to get on better with the ladies," Calhoun said. "And we're all watching out for each other, here."

"Well, I don't care who else he harries," the older man said, "I don't want him touching _her,_ or _any_ of us. If that ghoul thing is contagious..." He set his mouth in a line.

"It isn't," Calhoun said. "I understand your concern, Sam. Celia doesn't see any difference between the strange people in the wastes and people back in the Vault. She's refreshingly innocent, if a bit rebellious."

Pesaro scoffed. "She needs to be reigned in. She might have gotten her killed. Mike had to talk her out of taking on the sentry bot."

"I'll speak with her," Calhoun soothed. "Work on your report. We'll go over it, later." He stood, turned, and walked off toward the clinic.

He'd have to step up, he thought. Danger was everywhere, out here. The group couldn't afford to lose any more people, if they intended to live outside the Vault. _And,_ he told himself, _I'd rather not see Celia get hurt again._

That had been a long time in the making, he knew. Nina, God rest her soul, had been a good woman. Her untimely death left a void in him that remained unfilled. He _should_ have remarried; there were other women in the Vault he could have made a life with. But for the first few years after Nina's passing, he'd simply shut himself off from it. Didn't feel right, and he'd had the job to consider. Being Overseer drew a line between him and the others; because of the title, his social interactions had always had a strained element to them.

It was well and good that he'd been somewhat of a loner, before he'd taken the post. Much like Celia, he enjoyed having privacy and not being forced into close company. In the common house, he was stifled by that closeness. He did enjoy being able to pry her away from the others... to talk with her, alone. But he didn't want to push her too fast, too soon. She didn't know what to make of him, yet. As a surrogate mmother, Ann hadn't adequately prepared her for romantic intentions.

Nina had died at the same time as Celia's mother, Overseer Barbara Landis. Barbara's death had left two children without any parents. Nina's death had only left Jack, alone, and suddenly in power. Celia had been four years old, Ed seventeen.

It was six years before he even paid any attention to the girl, and five more before he'd realized she was attractive to him. He sighed to himself. What he'd thought at the time was not applicable to the situation at hand, anymore. Her reckless nature had only gotten worse in the intervening period between his initial feelings and their leaving the Vault.

And Ed, when his mother died, had quickly married the Pottin girl and expected Ann to raise his sister for him. Calhoun shook his head at that thought. Celia bristled against authority too easily to even listen to what Ann said. That was a Landis family trait; when in power they were capable workers, but out of it... Ann certainly knew how to use her wiles to manipulate others, almost as well as he did. She must have tried everything in her power to compel Celia to behave. It hadn't worked.

He entered the dismal clinic, pushing those thoughts out of his head. Dr. Jen was standing by the door, reading a clipboard. She smiled at him. "Safe as houses," the doctor said. "Celia should heal up in no time."

Calhoun nodded, and went around the screen, to the gurney where Celia was laying on her stomach. She had no shirt on, but the bandage across her chest covered her effectively enough. Dr. Jen was considerate of her modesty.

"How are you, Celia?" he asked, quietly.

The girl's head whipped around in surprise, looking away from a ratty comic book she'd been reading. "Overseer!" she said, nervously. "Uhh―I guess I'm okay?"

"Good," he said. Calhoun moved closer, leaning against the wall to her left. He fixed her with a stern stare. "I hear you were being reckless."

She looked down, her face flushed in shame. "I got carried away," she mumbled. "Simon _died._ ...I'll should have done better."

"Pesaro says that Simon rushed blindly into a laser," Calhoun said, crossing his arms. "It wasn't your fault."

She colored further, made a pained face. "I criticized him," she said. "For not being able to do what I was. It made him look stupid, and he―"

"We all have our own talents, Celia," Calhoun said. "Simon should have realized he wasn't made to disable robots. He was a good shot with a pistol; he knew his circuitry fairly well. He could have been Ed's apprentice in a year or two."

She looked down at the comic book, appropriately chastised. It was not an act, though she'd likely forget the lecture the moment he walked away. Calhoun understood. He'd been a rebellious teenager, once.

"You are much better at taking risks than the rest of us," he continued, "but I want you to be prudent, and not go fool-headed into a fight. No more crazy stunts, okay?"

"Yes, sir," she mumbled.

Calhoun moved and sat down on the edge of the bed, eyeing the mess of hair on her head. "You _can_ call me Jack, you know," he said, gently. "I'm not the Overseer, anymore. I left that at the Vault."

She was quiet for a moment. "You're still in charge, though," she said, staring away from him.

He hadn't expected she would use his first, but it was worth a try. Calhoun eyed her back where the bandage rested, bulkily covering the wound. Whatever the injury had been... he didn't like what he saw. Her spine was poking through her skin and ribs were dramatic against the tanned skin on her sides. "Have you been eating?" he asked, frowning.

"There isn't much to go around," she said, tonelessly. "I eat what I get."

Calhoun sighed to himself. The problem of food was going to be a constant one, until they could get into the base permanently. Celia had lost a lot of weight, and the loss of her chubby cheeks made her look a lot less like a child. He wondered if that made her more or less attractive to him, for a moment, before pushing his focus back onto the importance of food.

"Are you hungry now?"

She shook her head. "Mike gave me med-x," she said. "At the base. I can't really feel my stomach."

"This is absurd," he muttered to himself. "We need to do better than this."

Celia turned a page on the comic, the paper rustling loudly in the quiet clinic. Calhoun stood up, ran a hand over his thinning hair, and cleared his throat. "Celia... if anything is bothering you... or any_one_, or you just need to talk. Come talk to me. I can't read your mind," he half-joked, "but I will listen very carefully."

"I am fine, thank you," she said, in the same tone of voice she'd used the last time they were alone. "May I please finish this comic? Dr. Jen has to kick me out at bedtime."

He nodded, smiling in relief. The tension had gotten very strong for a moment. "I'll see you at the common house. Be well, Celia."

Calhoun left, breathing easier once he'd left the gloomy room, and sought out Mike Rind. Mike and Ed had gone off, back to the Vault, according to Sally. Calhoun was furious. _"Why?"_ he asked.

"Mike remembered something that he forgot, last time," Sally said, eyeing the angry man. "They'll be back soon enough. Don't worry, Overseer."

_Those fools could die out there,_ he thought, _and I'd lose two of the most important members of the group._ He groaned to himself. Not to mention that they hadn't asked _him._ He was getting a little tired of the freedoms that others were taking with his authority. _This isn't the Vault,_ he told himself, _I know I can't expect everyone to jump when I say so._

But that detention center idea he'd had was starting to seem more and more important. The sentry bot in the armory at the base... would make an excellent guard.

Calhoun rubbed his face wearily. It would be an uphill battle, from here on out.


	14. Sympathy

Both ghouls went with the group to secure the military base, the next day. Lilian was fussing over Celia like a mother hen, bothering her constantly and making a fool out of herself. Lionel ignored it until it became too annoying for even him to handle, and snarled at Lilian. "She's fine," he said, bluntly. "Quit bothering her."

"She's not bothering me," Celia said, looking through binoculars at the distance. She was sitting on the gap in one of the mortared walls wrapping the south side of the base complex, watching for trouble. So far the base had not attracted any attention, but it was really only a matter of time.

"She's bothering _me_," Lionel grumbled, pulling Lilian away from the wall.

Lilian shrugged him off and glared at him. "Don't you take that tone with me!" Lilian huffed.

Celia smiled, looking down at them over her shoulder, and drummed her feet on the wall. "You guys are funny."

Lionel scoffed. "Funny is the last thing in the world that I am," he snapped. "Lilian, stop treating the kid like you treated Patty."

Lilian gasped and put a hand to her mouth. "You―You _mean_ old man!"

There was an awkward silence for a moment, as Lionel stared at Lilian. She knew damn well was she was doing; he knew damn well what she was doing, too, and it did not make him at all happy.

"Who's Patty?" Celia asked, looking through the binoculars again.

Lionel fixed Lilian with a serious look, turning the full force of his irritation onto her. She turned away, screwing up her mouth. "Patty was Lilian's daughter," he rasped, angrily. "She's _dead."_

Lilian heaved a sob, dashing off toward the base buildings. Lionel watched her go, wishing he hadn't had to be mean. But he didn't like the way Lilian was becoming so attached to Celia. Right from the very beginning, she was pushing the limit. Lilian could be intense and overbearing, when she wasn't careful, and Lionel did not intend for her to "adopt" the girl. It would be trouble. Neither one of them needed more of that.

Celia scooted sideways to watch her leave. "What happened to Patty?" she asked, once Lilian was out of sight.

Lionel crouched down and sat on the pavement, leaning back against the wall. "Patty ran away from Grayling when she was sixteen," he said. "Lilian told her she couldn't marry a trader from Toskey. She died out in the wastes, somewhere." He cast his eyes upward at Celia's back. "Used to bother Patty like that, all the time. It bothers me."

She didn't reply. Lionel picked up a hand of dirt and ran it through his fingers, thinking. Lilian was selfish, sometimes. She might try to take in Celia, with the idea to raise her as her own. To replace the child she'd lost in Patty. She should be content that she still had Jennifer who cared for her, and friends in Grayling who cared for her. He had no one but Lilian to care for.

Damn, that made him feel like shit. Shouldn't have chased her off. He'd have to swallow his pride and apologize.

"I don't mind if she wants to smother me," Celia said, quietly. "My mom died when I was little. I... didn't have that, growing up."

"Mine died, too," Lionel muttered. He didn't remember much about that time in his life. He threw a rock across the court and sighed. "If you give Lilian an inch, she'll take a mile. Better to have her stop now."

The silence between them was filled with crunching footsteps on gravel and the soft whirring of a Mister Gutsy as a dark-haired woman approached. "Hey, Celia!" she called. "Come see this guy."

Lionel took the binoculars and stood by the opening in the wall, scanning the distance, as Celia came down to talk to the woman.

"This is the one that sliced you up," the dark-haired woman said. "See? One of the boys named him." She pointed. "Sergeant Sawyer."

"Ha, ha. Very funny," Celia said. "How's everything going over there?"

"The sentry bot hasn't been disabled yet," was the answer. "No one's explored that room yet. Benjamin is on watch right now. The old man is picking fights with everyone about how to proceed." The other rolled her eyes dramatically. "You should see it, it's ridiculous. No one's listening."

Lionel looked at them and made a questioning noise. "She's talking about Calhoun," Celia explained. "We called him the old man because―well, he's older than us. It's our pet name for the Overseer."

"He's not old," Lionel said, turning back to watch the distance. "Pesaro is old. That one with the eye twitch, _he's_ old."

The woman laughed. "I guess we should trust your expertise," she said. "I'm Sally, by the way. Daughter of Joel, he of the eye twitch."

Stung him a little, people talking about him being old. He was a _hell_ of a lot older than all these people, but not by choice. His feathers were ruffled, right now. Lionel made a face. He had to _try_ to be nice.

"Sally, can you take over my watch here?" Celia asked. "I want to see what's going on in there."

"You both can go," she replied, patting the robot. "I've got to put Sergeant Sawyer through his paces out here." She laughed, easily. Lionel laid down the binoculars and moved away from the wall, eyeballing the Gutsy. "There's 'coffee' in the mess hall, if you want. Darla's serving."

"Thanks, Sally!" Celia said, waving good bye.

Lionel and Celia walked away, back over the rubble that lay about the court. Celia swung her arms back and forth, and kicked out her legs in a goose-step. It made her look a lot more like a child than she had before. "Where did Lilian go?" she wondered.

Lionel shook his head. "Probably on some poor bastard's shoulder, complaining about how mean I am."

The girl laughed. "You could be _meaner,"_ she said, jokingly.

"I could," he answered, deadly serious. "But I won't."

Celia didn't say anything. She really did need to realize it wasn't a nice place out in the wastes, he thought. Maybe she would figure it out before the town was attacked for the first time. It wouldn't be very long before _that_ happened, he knew.

The double doors of the mess hall had been opened and the chain had been moved to the room where the sentry bot was, according to one of the Vault people. Celia stopped to ask a few questions and Lionel saw the others were staring at him. He felt the stares but let them drop. One man gagged and turned away. Celia didn't seem to notice.

She must have seen it, though. No one was that oblivious. Lionel knew what he was.

"Is there anything to eat?" Celia asked a sturdy, middle-aged woman running the percolator. The woman fixed her with an intensely painful stare, then turned the look onto Lionel. He didn't like it.

"This is it," she said, hoarsely.

"Okay, thanks, anyway," Celia said, and moved away, holding her stomach.

He wondered if she was hungry. She looked a lot thinner than when he'd first met her. _All that Vault food,_ he thought, with a snort. _Fattening._ "What's _her_ problem?" he grumbled.

"Darla is Simon's mother," she said, distantly. "The one who died."

"Doesn't like you, huh?" Celia shrugged in reply. Lionel got the feeling she wasn't well-liked to begin with, around these people. He felt a little sympathy for her. Not enough to let Lilian "adopt" her, though. He wasn't that foolish.

They moved onto the office rooms, and Celia stopped at a door, listening. "Hrmm," she said, sounding curious.

"What?" he rumbled.

She flushed. "Uhhh―nothing," and moved around the corner. "...You should go find Lilian. I'll see you later, okay?"

Lionel shrugged. "Whatever, kid," he said, and turned about, marching back through the mess hall. Where the hell did that woman go?


	15. Night Soil

Ann Landis, that pickle-faced prude, was the cause of a lot of trouble that day, but particularly bad trouble for Calhoun. Her morals had been irksome before, in the Vault, but this time he wanted to throttle her. Because she'd eavesdropped, which was definitely something she shouldn't be practicing if she preached against it, she'd picked up on Calhoun's attempt to pursue Celia.

Ann marched Ed Landis into the big office, where Calhoun had set up his mayoral headquarters, once Ed had finished with the robots on the grounds. Sally, Mike, and Jason Knowles were out setting the robots into position while Calhoun rummaged through the office, inventorying what was available. Small piles of pencils, batteries, cigarettes and paper were on the desk, along with two small handguns and a handful of ammo.

"Overseer Calhoun," Ed said, apprehensively.

"Yes?" he asked, keeping his face neutral. He rifled through a drawer, distractedly.

"Uh..." Ed shot a look at his wife, who firmly pressed her lips together and stared at him. "I hear you've been, uh, showing interest in Celia," he said, slowly.

Calhoun slammed the drawer shut, narrowly missing a finger, and sat down behind the desk. "My best robot-disabler? Naturally," he said, and steepled his fingers. "She's done a lot for us, here."

Ed's face became a parade of emotions. "Ann says that it's more than just that."

Calhoun regarded the woman. Her face was pinched, her mouth so thin that it could have cut metal. She looked like she might implode. He tried to imagine what she would be like to have as an in-law, but shuddered mentally at the prospect. He looked back to Ed. "Is that a problem?" he asked, tilting his head.

"...No," Ed said, but sighed. "Ann thinks that it might be inappropriate, given your ages. We should observe propriety," he said, sounding for all the world like he was making a practiced speech, "and not fall into the ill-kept ways of the wastelanders."

Calhoun leaned his elbows onto the desk, placing his palms down. "Are you implying that I would take _advantage_ of your sister?" he asked, coldly.

"No, _no!"_ Ed said, embarrassed. He waved his hands at the thought. "Just that, well... If you do intend to continue, then it needs to be straight-forward and less secretive."

"Celia is an adult," Calhoun said. "She just had her eighteenth birthday, as I recall. I am _also_ an adult, albiet an older one. No matter what you, or others, may think, she's capable of making her own decisions. Are you worried that I might show favoritism to her over others, or otherwise doom the group to failure because of affection?"

"No, sir," Ed said, firmly. "Just that things are done properly. Ann feels that Celia is much too immature to handle the expectations of marriage right now."

Calhoun would have laughed if not for Ann's terrible face. _Certainly the truth,_ he thought. "I am content to wait," he said. He leaned back in the chair and gave a strange little half-smile. "I may be waiting for a long time, though."

Ed laughed, a little chuckle of agreement. Ann elbowed him. "You leave her be, until she's ready," she said, coolly.

"I will, Ann."

Calhoun waited until the two had left and walked away from the door before letting loose a stream of obscenities. He no longer felt confident about his plans for the future, with Pesaro and Mike curtailing his ideas left and right. Now this, on top of it all?

It would take him ages to talk the girl into going with him, at this rate. The thought of his forty-second birthday approaching made that even more pressing an issue. Even if he was older―hell, even if he was her own age―she wouldn't be easy to sweet-talk. He might die before she was ready.

He smacked himself in the forehead, and ran his hand down his face, then kicked his feet up on the desk and leaned back in the chair, until he was almost falling over. A knock on the door brought him back to rights.

"Come in!"

Mike Rind reported on the patrols. All the robots were keeping the peace where they had been, so were returned to their starting positions. "There's two patrolling the bunkhouses, against each other, and the rest scattered through the courtyard," he said. "Joel is out fixing up the fences and walls with scrap metal and concrete slabs. The Hollises are out looking at the ground, trying to find the best spot to begin groundbreaking for the farm." He pinched his nose shut, and laughed. "Thomas Knowles is digging what he called a cesspool. Said something about night soil."

"Good man!" Calhoun said. "Jim and Gus?"

"Clearing debris from the buildings. The Easton girls are gathering up everything loose that we can sell for food or medicine. I warned them not to get excited about it. Susan found a Nuka-Cola stuffed in behind some boxes and drank it." Mike rolled his eyes. "Probably been there for one hundred and sixty years."

Calhoun sighed. "Have them bring it to the mess hall for sorting," he said. "We'll use our Pip-Boys to inventory." He pushed a pencil back to its mates on the desk. "Jacob?"

"Organizing enough beds for the bunkhouses, so we can sleep on-site." Mike turned to the door as another knock came.

"Free to talk?" Celia asked, poking her head in.

As much as he would have loved to kick Mike out for a moment, Calhoun couldn't afford to get on Ann Landis' bad side. She was gossipy enough to ruin him in three words. He could still strike out at her without looking improper. "Not right now," he said. "Do me a favor, and tell your sister-in-law that I want her to assist Thomas Knowles."

Mike snickered and covered it with a cough. "Can do," she said, and left, shutting the door quietly.

"She needs to be knocked off that high horse," Calhoun said, by way of explanation.

"Ann Landis is the worst at everything she does," Mike said. "Did you know, she was cleaning up the kitchen, then sat down and didn't get back up? I got to hear Sally on a tirade about it." He chuckled. "Ann will eat you alive for this one."

"Did anyone find any more of those pulse grenades?" Calhoun asked, changing the subject.

"I think so," Mike said. "I'm still waiting on the girls to get back to me when they find ammunition or guns. Sharon said there was a pile of munitions in one of the boxes down by the west wall, though. I told her to let it be for now."

"I found this in the bottom drawer of the desk," Calhoun said, thumping down a book. _"In Case of Emergency,"_ he read. "There's directions in here for manually disabling the Gutsy and Protectron models, and it mentions the pulse grenade will force robots into a shutdown state."

"Destroys it?"

"I think it fries the circuitry," Calhoun said.

"That would be awful, if you want to keep the sentry bot," Mike said.

"I'd rather we could sleep in peace than have a rogue bot around. Benjamin is on guard, still?"

"Says he can hear it in there, scuttling around. Wants to take a break." Mike looked up at the wall behind Calhoun, the only thing separating them from the robot.

"Take this pile of stuff out to the mess hall, for me, would you?" Calhoun gestured at the desk. "And send Celia down to Benjamin."

"You really want her on guard?" Mike asked.

"No, no," Calhoun said. "I'm going to take over for Benjamin, and she wanted to talk, so..." He threw his palms up. "Oh, one more thing," he added. "Are the ghouls still on the base?"

"I think they were out with Celia on the wall," Mike said, "but Sally sent them back up to the mess, and I didn't see them anywhere. Lionel seems to follow Celia around when she's out and about, though."

Calhoun nodded. "I'm aware. Have someone tell them thank you, but we don't need their help today. I'll talk to Lionel later about payment." He stood, stretched, and strode to the door. "After you, Mike."


	16. GOAT

Celia begged Calhoun to let her throw the grenade into the room with the sentry bot. When she heard his plan, she felt like it was something she ought to do as the primary robot combatant. ...She decided to come up with a better name for the position, later.

But Calhoun, who watched her in amusement with those shining black eyes, choose to give the honor to Pesaro, who had actual combat training. She sulked a little, but as least she was allowed to switch the sentry bot off when it was disabled. Ed and Mike rolled it outside while she and the older men searched through the supply room.

Looking around, she saw a lot of metal shelving standing in the middle of the room and pushed against the walls. Scrap metal, ammunition, some odd-looking guns, regular service rifles and sensor modules were scattered throughout the room. She picked up a roll of duct tape and shoved it into a pocket. She stopped at the very far end of the room and examined a big orange button on the wall.

"Can I press this button?" she called.

"What?" Pesaro moved to her side of the room. "Oh, well. Probably the access to the power room. Calhoun!"

"Celia, run out and grab up Mike," Calhoun said, rubbing his chin.

"Where is the door?" Pesaro said, as she left.

Celia took her time walking out. She walked even slower through the building, thinking. Everyone had been busy all day, tempers were high, and people were acting like mean children. She wished things would hurry up and get back to normal.

She'd noticed Pesaro taking liberties with Calhoun's authority, and Mike too, and wondered what was going on with that. If they were still in the Vault, Calhoun would have stripped them of privileges and put them on toliet duty for a few weeks. ...But they weren't in the Vault, anymore.

Everything was so much different, now. Celia didn't know that she liked it.

Ann stared at her maliciously. She didn't know what was going on there, either. Lately, Ann had treated her as if she were a useless appendage, only fit for cutting off. It was a little harsher, a little more mean, than Ann had been before. Whatever the woman had shoved up her butt need an _-ectomy,_ immediately.

Celia ignored her and stepped toward Mike, who was shining his Pip-Boy light into the panel on the sentry bot. She peered over his shoulder to see what he was talking about and caught an elbow in the nose when he jerked his hands back in an excited gesture. "Ah, _hell,"_ he said.

"Calhoun wants to see you in the supply room," she mumbled, through the pain.

When she returned, Pesaro watched her blowing her nose, with a funny look on his face. Mike went to the panel and everyone forgot anything they'd been thinking when the button was pushed, and the wall slid open to reveal a massive computer console set in the far wall of a hidden room. In the floor of the room was a closed hatch. Alarm lights on the walls spun red circles around the room.

Mike went to the operator console and pulled out the keyboard. His fingers flew across the keys. "Bingo!" he said. "Access to the basement, and a site-wide shutdown protocol. We're _lucky!"_ He typed while the rest examined the room. "Okay, I've shut down all the robots on the lower level, and a functional turret system. Seems like a great hideout if we need one," he added.

Calhoun patted his shoulder. "Open the hatch," he said. "Celia, run back to the supply room and grab some weapons."

She darted off and returned with some of the funny-looking pistols. Pesaro had his 10mm out when she returned, and she showed him what she'd gathered. He checked out the pistols. "Laser," he said. "Hmm. Here's the safety, that's the trigger. Probably has less kick than the little revolver you had before." He handed her one of the pistols. "Be mindful."

They entered the basement, one at a time, with Pesaro and Celia ahead of Mike and Calhoun. The tunnel stretched out ahead of them, leading into a power room. Mike looked it over briefly, then said, "This one's for Benjamin." Calhoun and he went left, while Celia and Pesaro went right, down a tunnel with several small closets. It was a dead end of supply rooms filled with fission batteries and other electronic scrap.

Celia nudged a Protectron with a foot. "Should we disable them manually, too?"

"Probably." Pesaro turned to her and looked her up and down. "Celia, what was your score on the G.O.A.T?"

She opened her mouth in shock and turned to him. _"What?"_ she sputtered.

"I only ask, because we are going to start assigning jobs to people around the base." He looked at her amicably. "You and the twins were the only ones who hadn't been assigned a position, before we left. Given how much school you missed, I can't imagine you did very well."

She reddened, and glared at him. "That's _very_ rude!" she snapped. She grabbed a screwdriver and removed the panel from the back of the Protectron, disabling it with a jab.

Pesaro followed her down the hallway when she moved. "You'll probably be stuck with farming," he said, absently.

Celia ignored him. There was nothing wrong with farming. He acted like she should be better than what she was doing. She supposed it was because her mother had been Overseer, and because Ed was so much more successful. So what? she thought. Somebody had to farm. Maybe they could get a Brahmin or two. She'd liked the Brahmin at Grayling. They were less horrible than a lot of the people she knew, present company _included._

Just because she didn't fit into some predetermined Vault mold, she thought. Because she was a loner? Or because she seemed like a pushover when someone argued with her? She wished she was a different person, sometimes.

He was right about the General Occupational Aptitude Test. She gotten frustrated with it and changed all her answers to "C", and Mr. O'Nan had made her take it two more times. Both times she'd gotten Maintenance, a trash collector. She hadn't really cared until John Feely had cursed at her and drove her out of the incinerator room for trying to burn soiled linens. That was when Calhoun had called her up to his office and organized supplies for her to scout the wastes.

Celia suspected she'd been volunteered for the mission by Ann. She was nonessential personnel at the Vault. Bobby Perkins had been, too, and a lazy, stupid boy. If everyone here saw her in that light...? She almost felt like crying. Maybe she could just go away from them. Lilian would probably take her in. She'd have to persuade Lionel, though.

They walked back to the power room and found Calhoun waiting by the turbines. "Mike went up to find Benjamin," he said. "What did you find?"

Pesaro detailed the contents of the supply rooms as Celia slipped away, back up the stairs and out of the main building. She kept walking until she reached the eastern fence, and sat down with her back against a solid wall to watch the sun setting. She dropped the pistol beside her and pulled her knees up to her chest, feeling a twinge in her shoulder.

Maybe she _should_ leave, she told herself. It would be easy. Just her, and this little laser pistol, walking the wastes. But she was scared. If one bloatfly sting was enough to make her limp, and a robot enough to give her twelve stitches and enough blood loss to cause unconsciousness, then the other creatures of the waste... would certainly kill her.

She squeezed her knees to her chest, staring out over the base. This place was _okay._ Maybe not the people, but the base itself was safe. Except for Grayling and maybe Lionel's little hideout up in the rocks, there wasn't anywhere for her to go. Ann wouldn't let her leave, either. She still seemed to think she was Celia's mother, or at least acted like it.

Celia sat by the wall until night fell, the twinkling of the stars given background music by the soft whirring jets of a Mister Gutsy.


	17. Ghost Story

They named it Stockton, after Simon. Jacob Ievvi made up a bit of metal with Simon's story on it, which he hung on the window outside the mess hall. Stockton grew in size by five people in the first six months.

One of them, much to Celia's surprise, was her niece Virginia Landis. Calhoun had been correct in his prediction. The other four were people who wandered in from the Vault, after the doors were finally sealed. The reports from the Vault were terrible to hear, and Celia had left the town meeting in the mess hall once Dorothy Woods started describing how her infant son had died in his cot from smoke inhalation.

Mike and Sally married, after two years of engagement, with a small celebration. Celia hadn't attended, neither had she gone to the party when Jason Knowles married Susan Easton. She'd gone off to practice with a hunting rifle purchased from the lone trader that Stockton had seen in the entire six months.

She was amicable to farming and occasionally shooting at ants lurking on the dry lake bed near Lionel's shack. She spent a lot of time with the ghouls, chatting about whatever was going on in Grayling and Stockton. Lionel found her spare parts for the hunting rifle and helped her learn how to fix it, but didn't talk much about anything.

With the first major inventory, Calhoun organized a purchase of five Brahmin, which soon exploded into several more, once Celia proved that she could help with the calving. It wasn't pleasant, but she enjoyed the animals' company. She was also grateful that Calhoun no longer showed up while she was alone to embarrass her with tender words. Whatever that had been about, she didn't know.

She was still lonely, on her own in Stockton. She'd moved into the women's dorm, with a couple others. A few people had organized a search for appropriate building materials to construct metal shacks around the walls, for guard posts. Celia would look out the window of the dorm and see the faint light of a guard's lamp on the wall, while trying to figure out how she could leave and survive the wastes on her own.

She didn't sleep very much. It was hard to sleep when she was so unhappy with her situation.

Lionel told her not to be stupid, to stay in Stockton. Lilian said she should start a family, but didn't suggest who she should start it with. Celia rolled her eyes at the woman and said she wasn't particularly interested in either a family or a mate.

Besides, she kind of considered the ghouls to be family. For lack of a blood relation, they were as close to it as she'd ever come. Lilian and Lionel never turned her away and were very fond of her, or at least she thought that they were.

Lilian hadn't run off since her return on that fateful night that Celia spent alone in the car. Lionel said she'd "beat the spread," but Celia didn't know what that meant. She ran food stores up to them every week, collecting caps and occasionally taking the goods that Lionel found into Grayling to sell. He clammed up tighter than a Vault door when she showed him how much she'd managed to get from the first haul, and afterwards had not talked about it at all. She wondered if he was angry; she was a good bit better at getting good prices for scrap than he was.

On occasion she would drop off electronics for Lionel to fix. He could fix almost anything. She never told them that she bought the electronics from people in Grayling, with her own money made from salvaging and whatever Calhoun paid her to farm.

Once, when Celia had stayed too long at the shack and was forced to spend the night, Lilian opened up about her family. "I had three girls," she said. "Patricia, Jennifer, and the last one died at birth. She never had a name. I think I would have called her Linda."

"And Patty died, too?" Celia asked, wiping down the plates from dinner. Lionel was outside, off doing something.

"My poor Patty," Lilian said, her eyes glazing over for a moment. "Yes, after she met that no-good trader man who spirited her off into the wastes." She smiled. "You've met Jennifer, though. She does me proud."

"What was your married name?"

Lilian sighed, and ripped up more rags. She was planning to re-stuff a teddy bear for Virginia's first birthday. "We don't like to mention Max around here," she said. "Too many bad memories. And Lionel never liked him."

"My dad died on the very first scouting mission into the wastes," Celia said, changing the subject. "Ed said I wasn't even born when he left. My mom died when an electrical fire broke out in our living quarters. I was four." She wiped down another plate. "Ed and Ann were married right after I started school." She felt like she'd been denied a family or so many years.

"Are you content, Celia?" Lilian asked her. "With things the way they are right now?"

She paused, the plate in her hand hovering over the shelf. "I don't know. Are you?"

Lilian gave her grating little laugh, and smiled. "Want to know a secret?" she said.

"I guess," she said, and put the plate down.

"When I 'run off' like certain people seem to think I do," the ghoul said, "I go up to Toskey, and sit in the shallows of the bay, watching the barges skim across the water."

"Barges?" Celia asked.

"Well, they're really little more than a floating hunk of wood with an engine," Lilian said. But I like to watch them on the water and imagine what life was like, back before Lionel became the irate old coot that he is today."

"For three months?" the girl asked, before kicking herself. She oughtn't have brought that up.

Lilian sighed. "I got lost. It happens," she said. "And I ended up too far east."

"What is east of Grayling?"

"There used to be a town, out near the water," Lilian said, picking up the teddy bear and stuffing rags into it. "On-the-Bay, I think it was called. I went there once as a small girl, with my father."

Lionel opened the door roughly, slammed it shut, and walked to the mattress in the corner. "Cold out there," he grumbled. He laid down, obviously not looking to join the conversation.

"Lionel," Lilian said. "Stay up. Celia and I are talking about On-the-Bay."

He just grunted, pushing himself backwards into the wall.

"Anyway," the woman said, ignoring Lionel, "one day, On-the-Bay got quiet. Traders who came through said the whole place just up and left. That was, oh, about three years ago? It was like the people had just disappeared, and anyone who stays in the town goes missing, too." She finished the bear and asked Celia to thread a needle.

"Just gone," Celia said. "No reason why."

"Yes."

"Creepy," Celia said, sewing the bear up for Lilian.

"It's not creepy," Lionel rasped, from the bed. "There's too much damn radiation out there. Go to sleep."

Lilian snorted at him, and Celia finished up the bear. She handed it back to Lilian and went to the corner where Lionel had a bedroll laid out. He'd had her buy it and then given it to her for when she was stuck somewhere in the wastes. She'd left it at the shack. _Because where else would I go,_ she laughed to herself.

Lilian turned out the light and Celia stared into the darkness. She could hear the raspy breathing of Lilian, and a crackling snore from Lionel after a moment or two. She curled up in the bedroll and wondered how an entire town could just up and go like that, without any notice, any evidence of why. She could end up like that, if she left Stockton.

_I am not happy there,_ she said to herself. _I do what I'm supposed to do, but I don't like any of the people._ Except maybe Calhoun, he wasn't as bad as others, didn't insult her or pretend she didn't exist. Living in Stockton wasn't same as in the Vault; she had less to eat now, and her skin was more brown. But everyone still treated her like silly old Celia.

After that night, Celia watched her caps more diligently, and sold more than her fair share of scrap to the traders in Grayling. When she had enough money, she bought some meds and more ammo for her hunting rifle, and planned trips out into the wastes, to find a place she felt more at home.


	18. Paramount

East of Grayling, a group of mercenaries in the employ of Paramount made a temporary camp in the ruins of On-the-Bay. For four days and three nights, they camped there, clearing the area of ants, yao guai, and other dangers. This was a routine run that the group had done many times in the past, without any concern for the town's missing residents or other local elements. Their job wasn't to worry about the people, just to keep the local monsters at bay.

On the fourth night, the camp was attacked, something rising out of the bay and dragging them off into the silent, tenebrous water. Before the last of the men was killed, an emergency transmitter was activated, sending a message off into the wastes, ending at a radio tower north of Tawas. These towers were few and far in-between, serving as public radio and little else, and required the operators to make a manual delivery of the message to the nearest tower. As a result, it took nearly two weeks for the message to reach Tower 32 in Sterling, over one hundred miles away.

The message was decoded, logged into Paramount Control Archive Tower 2 in Detroit, and forwarded onto General Mercado. The general bounced it back to Control with a note. A dispatch operator archived the response, and sent a message out to Portage for delivery to Sigma when they returned from their mission in Green Bay. HARD Protocol had been enacted: Hazard Response Division Sigma was ordered to Thunder Bay.

Sigma, upon return to Portage, received the message with aplomb and accepted. Sigma's run along the shore of Lake Michigan took them almost one thousand miles to complete, from Portage to Ellison Bay. They were uniquely suited to deal with water monsters, and the transmitted report indicated that a new type of creature had taken up residence.

Sigma Leader, personal designation Bradley, read the information he was presented with, and adjusted the modus operandi for the mission. It was unheard of for a new water hazard to arise in middle Michigan, or for unknown creatures to appear anywhere above the Portage barrier line. Paramount's standing army of mercenary exterminators kept the landmass northwest of Detroit clear.

"Amphibious operation," he told Sigma, after beginning the trek northeast.

"Christ Almighty," Angus said. This was his usual response to all orders.

Mayer chuckled, and the sound echoed through the Paramount issue T-51b power helmet he wore. "You coward."

Angus grabbed the tall man's helmet with thickly gloved fingers and pulled him down to his height. "Say that to my face, you gangly bastard!" he growled.

Wade, Sigma's official rookie, watched the men scuffle. "We'll have to go through Camp Custer," he told Bradley. He tapped the chestplate of his power armor. "Colonel Bakke should have the amphibious equipment we need."

Bradley nodded at the young man and activated the prompt on his Pip-Boy, built directly into the power armor. Specialized equipment in the goldenrod-colored EK3 display allowed for an interactive prompt to be projected above the screen of the Pip-Boy. Wade knew this system inside and out, and had put together many of the displays himself, before joining Sigma. Bradley connected to a tower operator at Camp Custer, speaking through the screen. A crackling, garbled answer came back. It wasn't perfect, but it made long-range communication much easier than the earlier EK1 display.

Angus pushed Mayer away from him, drew his Gauss rifle from across his back, and aimed it to the north. "12-ball," he said, crouching.

Sigma was immediately on high alert, Bradley and Wade pulling their laser pistols and Mayer his gatling laser to meet the threat. Bradley's prompt crackled, and he shut it off with a quick flick of his wrist. A silent moment passed as Angus tracked the movement across the dirt, through the twisting trees and scrub in the distance. Wade felt more comfortable being stuck with the shorter range of the pistol when Bradley was also using one.

Angus tracked the target for another half of a minute before lowering his rifle. "Wade can have this one," he joked. Wade rolled his eyes. This meant the target was friendly, made no threat, or was otherwise easily dealt with.

Bradley kept his weapon aimed to the 12-ball position, due north. "There should not be anything on this side of the barriers, except us." He took a step forward.

Angus brought the rifle back up and sighted in the target again. "Corner pocket," he reported. "Paramount markings..." he swore. "It's the Fish."

Captain Herring, wheezing and rattling, caught up to Sigma and had to be allowed two minutes to get his wind back. Some people, thought Wade, were not made to wear power armor. Long-standing jokes about his name aside, Herring was just like a fish when he ran. He often forgot to latch his helmet properly, which would fly off into the wasteland to be retrieved at a later time, and when arrived, he would gulp and gasp like a fish out of water.

"Bradley!" he said, saluting the three-fingered chest salute of Paramount forces.

Bradley did not like Captain Herring. "Talk fast, Herring," he said.

"Barrier's down between the pylons here," he said, swallowing air. "Something big knocked one down."

"So call it in."

"Can't!" Herring gulped. "Prompts are all static."

Bradley turned his own on, saw that it was working, and looked up at Herring. "Call it in from this location," he said. "I'm going to report this, Herring. Sigma is not Portage's personal rescue team, no matter how often we pass through." He lowered his pistol and ordered Sigma to move on.

Once they were away from the Fish, Bradley turned to the team. "Angus," he said.

"Sir," Angus replied.

"You know the codes. Don't single out Wade because he's the rookie. When a target is friendly, Sigma doesn't lower weapons. Why?"

Angus sighed, lowered his head like a turtle into his power armor, and said, "Dead ball, sir."

Mayer laughed, echoing. "Getting too old, Angus? You forgetting stuff?"

Wade watched the short man skirmish with the taller Mayer. Angus won, just like every time. The two men were best friends, and Wade wasn't sure how it worked, but they complimented one another in combat.

"What is dead ball, Wade?" Bradley asked him, pulling him roughly out of the thought.

"All opposition, even friendly, bounces off, sir!" he called. Bradley nodded.

Sigma approached Camp Custer, the power distribution center for the resonance barriers that isolated middle to lower Michigan and Detroit from the rest of the wastes. The barrier only covered the lower part of Michigan, according to Bradley, but the lakes were a good enough deterrent to keep most trouble out of the middle.

Power turbines at Camp Custer, generating electricity to keep the resonance barriers powered, ran on nuclear-fueled steam. Each pylon in the chain was connected to the main conveyance in Camp Custer, providing constant, stable power, though on occasion a pylon would be taken down by an adventurous yao guai or accidental munitions discharge. Wade recalled that Detroit had portable pylons, but the ones separating Michigan from the world were anchored and required a dedicated power source.

He followed Angus, as directed by Bradley. Bradley would report to Colonel Bakke and orders would come down via radio signal and Pip-Boy prompts to the quartermaster, who would distribute equipment to the men. Mayer would receive food rations and other supplies, elsewhere.

Angus lead him through the "labs". Every Paramount facility had a "lab" to destroy unwanted waste. The underground bunkers had been fitted with incinerators, placed directly on a straight route to the weapons and armor supplies. An intruder attempting to get into any camp's armaments would be dealt with, swiftly. Angus told Wade that they were called "labs" because they tended to explode, when improperly maintained, much like the labs that stupid locals used to make drugs.

Wade jumped at the odd popping noises that the incinerators made, and Angus laughed at him. He didn't like walking through the "labs", mostly because the air made his nose bleed and the pollutants released by burning waste made his chest hurt. He checked the latch on his helmet, and made sure it was on properly.

Bradley met back up with the three men at the flag in the middle of the camp, a red and blue banner emblazoned with crossed swords. Wade stared up at the flag waving in the wind, placed directly below the Paramount flag of golden yellow and white across the width, with a theta symbol in the middle,

"Paramount has kept this part of Michigan safe for over fifty years," Bradley said. "We are the sum total of that experience. What are we?"

_"Paramount Force Sigma!"_ the three men sounded.

Bradley nodded, somberly. "Let's break for play, Sigma."


	19. Two Journeys

It took Sigma five days to reach Thunder Bay from the highway at Arbor. On the sixth day, Bradley took Wade aside and showed him the area, marching him to a higher spot of elevation about six hours away. While Detroit had been hit the hardest by the atomic bombs, the surrounding areas were not completely free of radiation or damage. Wade had never been north of the small towns surrounding Detroit. Trees were abundant in the area, many more than even Portage or Camp Custer, and he was reminded of the Green Bay area when he found some smaller berry bushes loaded with mutated blueberries.

He still missed his childhood home in Detroit, sometimes. Even though the sun never shined on the city, he could recall the familiar lullaby of the manufacturing plants, clanging and scraping in the darkness. The acrid burning smell of the city was not to be missed, however. Or the giant rats that forever plagued the slums. He cringed at the memory.

"Thunder Bay," Bradley said, and cast his left hand out over the water southeast of their position. "Where the mercenary transmitter was broadcasting. No safety on land; the crew had been camping in the town on the shore." He extended a finger to the open half-circle of the town. With his right hand, he gestured to the landforms to the southwest. "This area contains the local population. That is why HARD Protocol was enacted."

Wade could not tell if anything existed in the tangle of trees and rocky outcroppings that composed the spot where Bradley had pointed. He scrutinized the distance for a moment, then turned back to Bradley.

Bradley detailed a tentative plan for the mission. As a rookie, Wade had never taken part in an amphibious operation. Bradley warned him of the danger that the water could hold for any person, armored or not, as they returned to the mercenary camp located inside the town. Mayer had returned from his own scouting, and passed out rations when the two soldiers returned.

"Locals are calling this place On-the-Bay," Mayer said. "Most say they don't come near. About three years ago, the place was abandoned by the residents, or they were otherwise taken away. No one can really say why, but some of the locals think it was that irradiated band of junk outside the town gates."

Bradley nodded. The radiation had registered fairly high on their meters, passing in and out of the town gates. "We can assume that the town either lacked the equipment to remove the junk, or that they were using it to deter raiders from the area."

"I thought the mercenary crews took care of that sort of menace," Wade said.

"Occasionally one of the locals gathers up a few ne'er-do-wells and goes on a spree," Bradley said.

"The locals are terrified of us, too," Mayer said. "Apparently, a while back, some other soldiers with our colors rounded up people and drove them south. I had to use all my charm to get the locals to talk to me." He chuckled suggestively, and it echoed through his helmet from one side to the other.

Angus stomped into camp, tossing his helmet to the side and eagerly grabbing up the rations Mayer offered him. "Report, Angus," Bradley said, patiently.

The ruddy man looked up and shrugged. "No one knows a thing. This place is being avoided like it's on fire," he said, and chewed voraciously on a piece of jerky.

"Keep your gear up, Sigma," Bradley said, before retiring to a corner of the camp, thoughtfully examining his prompt.

* * *

Muffled explosions, in the northeast, had been a topic of conversation for some time along Highway 75, and even Lionel's pet project with a spark-gap transmitter wasn't enough to keep Celia's concentration. "Are you even watching?" he asked, throwing down a pair of pliers.

She looked down at the mess on the table and sighed. "You don't even know the names of the parts," she said. "How am I suppo―" Lionel gave her the meanest glare she'd ever seen him muster, and she looked away, quickly. "Okay, no, I wasn't," she muttered.

"Whatever," he said, and stalked out of the room.

Celia put her chin in her hands and poked an induction coil. How did he do it, she wondered, if he never really knew what he was doing? She supposed he'd learned it at one point, but forgotten.

Lilian was visiting Jen for a few days. Lionel had not said much about the visit, but Celia understood that it was something that Lilian had decided to do on her own. She supposed it was a way for Lilian to get away from the grump, without completely running away. Celia had come up to visit and had not realized he was alone. She should have just walked back home the minute she found out.

"Lionel?" she called, leaving the shack and looking around. No answer. "Fine, I'm going to go get shot, then!" she said, in case he was near and not answering.

She stomped back to Stockton, and dug out the tiny backpack she'd been given on her very first trip into the wastes. She still had a few odds and ends in it, mostly junk that she'd found rather curious on her exiting the Vault but now realized carried little value. Celia had kept some of it for sentimental purposes. She saw the little metal L-beam that she'd picked up from the dead ghoul on her second trip out. Turning it over in her hands, she wondered what kind of machine it belonged to.

Everything went back into the pack, and she grabbed her caps from the post she'd hollowed out to hide them. It wasn't much.

Celia sat down slowly, on her tiny cot. She counted out the money, then closed her fist tightly around the last piece. "Maybe," she said to herself. If she just up and went now, who would miss her? Maybe Lilian. No one else, though. She stood, stashed everything away, and opened the door to the bunkhouse.

Two Brahmin lowed at her from the fencing. They'd be fine, she knew. Mr. Woods usually fed them before she could even drag herself out of bed in the mornings. She wasn't as concerned about the people. No one even waved at her, anymore.

Silly old Celia, not even worth a hello. She sighed to herself, shouldered her pack, and started walking east.

* * *

Celia had spent time away from the town, before. A night, here or there, at Lionel's shack with him and Lilian, occasional trips into Grayling, one short two-day trip south to sate her curiosity about the other location that Lionel had mentioned to Calhoun. She didn't think it would hurt to try a longer trip.

She walked along the highway, and stopped in at Grayling to purchase medical supplies. She had some food, but she didn't want to risk injury without having something. She still recalled how painful that saw had been, in her back. She mentioned to Dr. Jen that she was heading north, just along the road and back. Jen raised an eyebrow, but didn't say a word.

The trees grew further together, the more she moved north. She consulted her Pip-Boy and found the right road, then hightailed it east. Picking her way across the broken highway, she looked up at the patches of blue sky in the gray clouds and breathed in the dull air. She plucked a few blueberries the size of her palm, but found they were a bit too unripe to eat. She ate very little, because she had very little.

She'd been practicing with her hunting rifle for ages, now, picking off small game in the trees and an ant or two, down by Lionel's shack. The top of the rock wall was easy to get up onto if one climbed his shack at its facing. She could lay on her stomach and take out an ant from almost seventy yards away. She felt somewhat proud of that.

On this trip, she noticed an odd lack of creatures in the area. To be safe, she dug a small hole on the side of the road and slept under the dirt, her nerves alive to the sounds of the nighttime. Or the lack thereof. It was very strange.

She pushed herself too hard, the second day, and could feel her chest constricting with every step. It wasn't uncommon for the former Vault dwellers to come down with bronchial infections from time to time. Dr. Jen had prescribed steroid inhalers. She used one now, and tossed it to the side of the road.

Celia thought a lot about her life. Everyone treated her like she was much younger than she actually was, she'd found. In the past year, she'd been subject to a stream of insults about her intelligence, which she'd ignored. Because she didn't talk much or try to make friends―she stopped in mid-stride.

_Oh, crap._ She'd been acting like Lionel! He came across as self-absorbed, sometimes, especially when he didn't bother to talk. Lionel didn't talk when he didn't know what to say. Mostly he didn't talk to her.

Never mind how she'd been acting, in the past. She was on a trip into the wastes, by herself. She didn't have _time_ to think about why people didn't like her.


	20. The Octopus

At the end of the fourth day, she made it to the edge of the town called On-the-Bay. Lilian had shown her on the map where it was, tracing the lines of the roads that she'd followed as a child. Celia stopped and looked behind her, into the darkening sky. There was no going back now. She was starving, tired, and her chest didn't feel much better than it had when she first felt sick.

_Maybe they are right,_ she thought. _Maybe I am a stupid, inconsiderate child._

She got angry, then. She climbed up a stand of rocks and jumped onto a roof, then sat cross-legged and pulled out her binoculars. The distance was almost too dark in the new moon, to see anything. There would have been a good view, she thought.

She waited patiently. Two fires in barrels on the beach flared into vision, outlining the sands, driftwood, corrugated metal sheets, and something on the beach, moving in a circle. She focused on a spot near the fires. Was that a robot?

No, it wasn't a robot. Looked like someone wearing power armor. There was power armor at the base; Celia had looked it over and found it entirely too complicated to figure out. Celia chuckled to herself. Robots certainly didn't throw their hands up in exasperation, either.

There were two figures standing by one fire. She panned her binoculars down to the other barrel. Two more on this one, one standing with its back turned. The other pulled out a long rifle and crouched, then aimed it directly at her.

_Well!_ She dropped the binoculars and raised her hands above her head. No shot was forthcoming, so she relaxed and laid down onto the roof. She wondered who they were. If they could afford that much armor, they must be some sort of mercenaries or military group. Didn't Mayor Rowland mention about men in power armor rounding up extra people, once before?

She stayed put. She was too tired to leave, anyway, and if she hadn't been shot yet, she probably wouldn't be. Would the explosions happen tonight? She'd always been fascinated by exothermic reactions. How long could she lurk in the town, if they knew she was here? It wasn't like she couldn't hide. There were plenty of places in the town to slither into. But who were they? Why were they here?

She felt the phlegm in her chest catching on every breath. She should get some sleep, at least. Celia turned onto her side, and tried to take a nap.

* * *

She woke to gunfire, a staccato of fizzing and zaps, laser weaponry. She heard a metallic thud, like someone had taken a bag of scrap metal and hit the side of a building. Scrambling to her feet, she pulled up the binoculars and tried to focus on the figures down by the water. Laser beams shot up out of the darkness, terminating against some sort of inky rope that hung suspended in the air.

What was that thing? She walked to the edge of the roof and steadied her hands on the binoculars. The rope wiggled against the flares of a gatling laser, then came slamming down onto the beach. She sighted it pulling slowly back into the water, a tentacle as wide around as a barrel, glistening as it passed the fire. One of the figures ran up and brought some sort of tool down onto the tentacle. It whipped around and grabbed the figure, dragging it off into the water with haste.

Celia dropped her binoculars to the ground below. The people here, they didn't just leave on their own, or get taken away. They were pulled out of their homes by a real monster, and dragged down into the water to drown or get eaten. She swallowed fear, and looked down. She felt like she should do something―the black tentacle came up into the sky, outlined by lasers. Two more appendages slammed down onto the sand.

How did the monster see? It tossed those arms out onto the sand with remarkably little noise for as large as they were, then drew them back. When something in motion came into contact with a tentacle, it wrapped itself around the object, and pulled it into the air. Maybe it didn't see, or didn't need to, what it was aiming for. She guessed it must have a mouth, below the water. She had an idea.

She jumped off the roof and moved into the town. She remembered when she was younger, and she'd gotten told off for taping together two propane tanks and pretending to be a spaceman. It had dampened her desire for space adventures... but opened a path to Celia the grenadier.

The three others were still fighting off the tentacles as she ducked into the general store, searching for what she needed. She came out of the store with a propane tank duct taped to a lamp and battery, some surgical tubing.

Celia reflected that she'd never needed help figuring out how to bomb things. She made her way down to the boardwalk along the shore, and tied the tubing to the bollards. She sat, placed both feet on the bollards, and pulled the tubing back, then placed the propane tank into the tubing. She glanced up, aimed, and adjusted herself.

What was it that the soldiers on the holotapes shouted, when they tossed a grenade into combat? She eyed the distance to the nearest tentacle.

_"Fire in the hole!"_

* * *

Wade let the chainsaw drop to the bed of the bay. Bradley had instructed him to agitate the creature into grabbing him, and let himself be carried into the water. He was released, after he stilled himself, and drifted down to the rocky floor of the water. Activating his lights, he saw the water was full of tiny bits of sediment.

His armor was heavy, but he lifted a leg and started walking toward the tentacles, working the buckles on his chest. A carefully wrapped package of C4 soon lay in his hands. Bradley warned him, if this operation didn't pan out, they would have to go underwater and hack it to death with combat knives. Wade was careful not to let his hands shake, while moving closer to what he hoped was the body of the creature.

As Bradley had predicted, he was grabbed up by a tentacle and propelled toward its mouth. An enormous beak gaped in the swirling current, lit up by the lights on his armor. Wade grasped the edge of the beak with one hand, and shoved the C4 into it's maw. To his right, a light moved through the water. He realized the monster had grabbed something bright, and was about to swallow it.

With a practiced motion, Wade unlocked his leg armor, kicked out of it, and pushed away from he monster. Behind him, the lighted thing exploded in the water, an enormous bubble moving toward him. He swam away, moving quickly. Water bubbled up into his chest piece; he had to get to the surface before his armor completely flooded, and the explosion caught up to him.

Days of planning and gauging explosions had taught Sigma that the thing would have to be dealt with in the water. Wade was the lightest member of Sigma, so it fell to him. Angus had joked that Mayer should lay off his steaks, and Mayer said he'd gladly swap them for the snack cakes Angus had hidden away. Wade had watched them fight about it with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

He concentrated on reaching the surface, powerful strokes pushing him upward. When he broke the surface an explosion rippled through the bay floor, and a wall of water pushed him toward the shore. The water behind him bubbled and expanded, then exploded, in a split second. Bits of the creature and the blood-tinted water rained down onto the sand, extinguishing their watch fires. Wade pulled himself to the shore, unlatched his helmet, and coughed up lake water.

Angus' loud voice broke through the patter of water with a loud swear. Wade looked up to see that Mayer had some thin person by the elbows, pinning them. He sat up, removed his chest piece and stared out over the bay. White chunks of flesh bobbed to the surface as water dripped from his armor.

Bradley brought him clothes, and Wade dressed. "Who's that?" he asked, looking at the person Mayer had pinned.

"An enterprising local with the same idea we had," Bradley said. "Good work, Wade."

"Thank you, sir," he said, shaking out his hair. He rose and grabbed his equipment, then joined the others.

"Sir?" Mayer asked, indicating the local with a nod of his head. Wade saw it was a young girl in a Brahmin-skin outfit.

"That's the little shit I saw up in town," Angus said. "I _shoulda_ shot you."

She stared at him, her face pale and eyes wide. Bradley approached her, pulling his pistol out and aiming at her face. "Where did you come from?" he asked.

"Stockton," she answered.

"And where is Stockton located?"

"Camp Grayling military base." She looked down.

"Wade," Bradley said. "Remove her Pip-Boy." Wade started a little. He noticed she did have a Pip-boy, then. ((Strange, he thought. All the Pip-Boys he'd known were the ones built into the Paramount armors. He moved forward to take it from her.

_"No!"_ she said, and tried to struggle against Mayer's grip.

"You interfered with a military operation," Bradley said. "You're lucky I haven't shot you in the face."

She went quiet, and Wade stripped the Pip-Boy from her. Mayer handcuffed her and led her up to the bollards, where he pushed her down into a sitting position. Wade took the Pip-Boy to Bradley.

"You're one of them techs," Angus said. "Maybe we can get some information from that thing."

Wade turned it on, ignoring the man, and scrolled through the screens. Pip-Boys could hold a vast amount of information, if one knew where to look. For a few minutes, he read the screen intently. "Sir, she appears to be collecting information on the locals. She's made informed notes on various locations."

"Fucking _spy!"_ Angus spat, and stalked over to Mayer.

"Her name's Celia Landis," Wade said.

"A spy would not dramatically present herself to a military force, don't you think?" Bradley mused.

Wade knew this was a trick question. Bradley was asking for his opinion, to gauge his response and intelligence. "Perhaps, if she expected we would think that way. She probably wouldn't have left this information on her Pip-Boy, though." He tapped the screen. "There seems to have been a nearby Vault. The entries here indicate this Pip-Boy and more came from there."

Bradley made a thoughtful noise. "Let's interrogate our local."


	21. Captured

Celia was terrified. After launching the propane tank into the air, one of the power-armored soldiers had immediately seized her up and held her firmly. The explosion of the monster in the bay, being pelted with flying pieces of flesh and water droplets, and the unbreakable grip of the tall one, had contributed to her terror. And the short soldier, who kept making threats toward her, had kicked her in the shin when the one called Sir wasn't looking.

Her leg smarted when the tall one led her up to a shack in the town, pushing her inside and sitting her down into a chair. She watched them, her eyes wide. What should she do, in this situation? What would Lionel do, or Calhoun? Lionel would probably get mean. Calhoun would try to talk his way out.

She decided not to volunteer any more than she needed to. She kept her legs tucked under her chair, eyeing the short soldier.

The one who'd come up out of the water―he was okay, and she was relieved. He was tanned and skinny, with a shaggy mess of brown curls on his head, and was looking down at her Pip-Boy with an intense expression. The one called Sir entered the shack last, unlatched his helmet and set it down on the table in front of her.

She looked up into a face scarred by a lifetime of combat. Cold blue eyes and white hair did nothing to soften the grim look on his face. "Your name?" he asked.

"You know my name," she said, flicking her eyes to the younger one.

"Tell me," he said.

She sighed to herself, and felt her chest tighten even more. "Celia," she said.

"Why did you come here?"

She coughed, cleared her throat, and coughed again, unable to stem the itching in her throat. "Wandering," she croaked. Her stomach growled loudly.

"And why did you launch that propane tank at the creature?" Sir asked, laying a hand on his helmet and leaning forward.

She looked at the young one again. "I wanted to help," she said, her voice softening. He didn't notice anything but the display in front of him.

An echoing chuckle came from the tall man, behind her. The short soldier, in her periphery, snorted. Sir straightened himself and shot a icy stares at both men. Silence lingered in the room, except for the occasional hiss of power armor filters and the beeping of the Pip-Boy. Sir turned to the young man and consulted with him in low tones for a moment.

"You are very young and stupid," he said, turning back to her. "Do you realize you could have put every one of my men in danger?"

"Yes," she said, and her anger at being called stupid reared its head. "But your power armor is more than capable of withstanding an explosion from a propane tank."

The young man looked up at this remark, and his amber eyes met hers for a brief moment. She looked down. "And just how do you know anything about power armor?" Sir asked.

Celia breathed out and said, "Obviously I'm from a Vault." The education the Vault provided, regardless of how often she'd actually attended school, had informed her about it.

"Are there power armors at Camp Grayling?" he asked, nearly interrupting her.

"Yes," she said, lifting her chin and staring at him.

He gestured to each of the men. "Angus, Mayer, Wade. I am Bradley. In this situation, I should execute you for interfering with our business. It is my duty to collect and return all military equipment to Paramount, however." He stared at her. "We will escort you back to this 'Stockton' place, and retrieve the armors."

Celia's heart sank. She realized that, if she were to return to Stockton with a group of soldiers intent on taking property from the town, she would be thrown out of town. She'd probably die.

"I'd rather you shot me, sir," she said, defeated.

The tall one―Mayer―laughed and it bounced around inside his helmet. "Let's do keep her," he said.

The short one, Angus, shook his head. "I say let her run. Keeps me sharp," he growled.

She felt a yawn coming on and put her hand over her mouth, and coughed again. She wished she hadn't left her things up on the roof of that shack. Even her rifle, which she'd laid down beside her, just in case. She kicked herself. Maybe she was as dumb as Bobby Perkins.

Bradley looked at her, appraising her. "Wade, go get your legs. Angus, find where this one stashed her things, probably where she was watching from, then hit the kitchen. Mayer, take cross-side. Wade will relieve you at dawn." He picked up his helmet and put it back to rights on his head. "Miss Landis, I'm afraid I'll have to leave you cuffed."

She shook her head as the others left. "Please," she said, her voice small. "I won't try to escape―" Oh, God, if he left her handcuffed, she would―

Bradley tapped the table with a finger. "If I give you this chance, and you do try," he said, pulling a thin wand from his side, "none of my men will hesitate to use a prod to compel your behavior." It popped and crackled as he turned it on. "I do not anticipate having to hurt you."

She nodded, and swallowed the dreadful feeling that came up her stomach. "No, sir!" she said, nervously.

Bradley uncuffed her, with the prod in hand, and she scuttled to the back of the room, curling up on the mattress. _Oh, what have I gotten myself into,_ she thought, and squeezed back tears. _It would serve me right if I got killed, here._

Celia cried herself to sleep, trying to hide her fear and shame.

* * *

Lilian was definitely becoming too attached to the girl, Lionel thought, and who had to pay for it? _Me, of course._ She'd straight-out refused to come home until Celia was back where she belonged―not that Lilian had clarified where _that_ was. He was beyond irritated.

He went out, anyway. There wasn't much he could do. The girl had probably gone off and gotten herself killed. He could at least bring home her corpse so Lilian would shut up about it.

That was what he'd expected to find. Tracking her route from the hints that Dr. Jen had given him, he went north, and peered into the brush. Here he was, keeping Lilian and having to watch out for the kid... he was too old for this shit.

He picked up on her trail by the trash she'd left behind. In a blowout near the road, a hole had been dug and an inhaler discarded further up the road. That was definitely Celia; those Vault people had delicate constitutions. She'd left her the cans from her food upside down on a tree branch, too. She always did that, he had no idea why.

Lionel tracked for three days, and stopped just shy of the radiation barrier of On-the-Bay. He was debating on how to proceed when the soldier found him, tromping up the road directly from the town.

Lionel eyed him and his gatling laser, and kept a hand on his hip. His revolver could not begin to take on this power armored brute, but it made him feel better.

"Greetings, exalted one!" the soldier called out.

Lionel sputtered. "What?"

"Beg your pardon!" the soldier came near, and held out a hand, putting his weapon on the ground. "I am Mayer," he said. Lionel stared at his extended hand. Mayer unlatched his helmet, and pulled it off. "I'm not _that_ intimidating, am I?" he asked, in a pleasant voice.

He was, actually. Lionel was extremely self-conscious after viewing this... metal-encased Adonis. Tall, blond, blue-eyed, _perfect._ "What the hell is this exalted shit?" he asked, gruffly.

Mayer regarded him for a moment, looked him up and down with a raised eyebrow. "You do not follow the teachings of the High Ferrule?" he asked, gently.

"Never heard of it," the ghoul said, honestly.

The soldier returned his helmet to his head and latched it. "Why are you here, if I may ask?"

Lionel grunted. "Looking for someone."

"Ahhhhh," he said, and the sound echoed slightly in his head. "A young lady perhaps?"

Lionel suddenly had a very bad feeling about the soldier. "Don't know what you mean," he said.

"If you are, I know where she is," Mayer said, holding out a hand. "I could show you."

"No," Lionel said. "No, I don't think so."

And he was on the ground, his face in the dirt and arm pulled out behind him by the soldier. He was faster than Lionel had given him mental credit for. Mayer put a booted foot on his back and pressed down, twisting his left arm roughly. It popped out of the socket with a terrible noise. Lionel yelled out, and breathed hard against the pressure in his chest.

"God_damn_, they grow 'em strong where you come from!" he growled.

Mayer spoke into his arm as if reporting. "Sir! Contact with defiled."

"Oh, you _son of a bitch,"_ he muttered into the ground.

"Secured," Mayer continued, and rotated his boot into Lionel's back. He stiffened against the movement, and tried to relax his arm. It hurt. It hurt bad, but he'd had worse. If the soldier were to stomp on him, he wouldn't be walking home.

Mayer released his arm and picked up the gatling before he removed his foot from the ghoul's back, and ordered him to walk. Lionel got up, his arm dangling, and started walking in the direction that Mayer ordered him.

What had that foolish girl done _now?_ He grumbled to himself, blaming Celia and Lilian for both being idiots.


	22. I'm Sorry

Wade received the new prisoner. Mayer had roughed him up pretty badly. He eyed the ghoul. The ghoul eyed him back with starred eyes, working his jaw.

Angus and Bradley had gone out to surveil the land for the day, leaving Mayer in charge of Wade. Mayer was angry for being stuck with the rookie, and had been taking it out on Wade all day. Bradley wasn't prepared to leave the town until he was sure there was no other threat.

Wade opened the shack door, unsure if it was a good idea to leave the girl alone with the ghoul, but his uncertainty was blown away very shortly.

Celia flung herself at the ghoul, sobbing, and the ghoul cursed. "Lionel," she mumbled.

"Get off," he said, and pushed her back a little. "Watch the arm. Pretty boy fucked it up."

Wade pointed his pistol at the girl, and turned to the ghoul. "Hold onto the table," he ordered.

Lionel looked at him warily, leaned his right arm onto the edge of the table, and waited. Celia pressed her lips together and closed her eyes.

Wade grabbed the ghoul's arm and shoved it back into place with a jerk. Lionel grimaced and made a pained noise. The girl whimpered sympathetically.

Wade turned to the side, looking at the girl, wondering. He realized it was a mistake almost immediately. The ghoul grabbed and swung the table around, smashing Wade in the arm, then pinned him against the wall with strength that Wade hadn't thought possible in someone so decayed.

"Get the gun," the ghoul barked out. Celia picked up the laser pistol and looked at him. _"Shoot_ him!" Lionel ordered.

She held the gun, unsteadily aiming it at Wade, and looked to the ghoul again. A moment passed in silence.

Wade turned his head, looking at the girl. He remembered, when Bradley had first been assigned him as rookie on Sigma, a discussion they'd had about the power of the weapon and the power of words. _A well-placed shot will end a fight,_ he'd told Wade, _but there are situations where a few well-placed words work just as well._

"Celia," he said, looking right at her. "I won't hurt you."

"Goddammit!" Lionel said. _"Shoot him,_ shit-for-brains!"

"I _can't!"_ she yelled back tearfully, and fled the shack. Wade pushed back the table easily and put the ghoul into a submission hold, breaking his arm this time.

"Regrettable," Wade muttered, and sent an SOS to Mayer. Mayer hotfooted it back to the shack, grinning at the ghoul as he knocked him down and stepped on his arm.

"Go get her," Mayer ordered Wade.

Wade loped off into the town, pulling up his prompt and studying the radar. The girl had made it to the treeline, then disappeared on his motion tracker. "Celia!" he yelled, out into the trees, moving toward where she'd been. "The ghoul will die, if you don't turn yourself in!"

She reappeared on the radar and he moved to the position, before she disappeared again. "Surrender and I promise that he won't come to any more harm!"

He heard her inside a hollowed-out tree, to his right. He shut off his prompt and pulled out the prod, hesitating. If he didn't get her back, he'd be in serious trouble. He didn't enjoy using the prod on people.

"Come out!" he yelled, one more time. She didn't answer. He reached a hand into the tree and grabbed her by the hair, yanking her upward. The prod came around and made contact with her stomach, shocking her, and she vomited. Wade dragged her out of the trunk and prodded her again, incapacitating her. She fainted, and he hauled her back to the shack.

Mayer had one foot on the ghoul's back, pinning him to the floor. Wade dragged Celia in and cuffed her to the bed. "What do you want to do with that one?" he asked Mayer.

Mayer tossed another set of cuffs to Wade and jerked a thumb at the unconscious girl. "That. Who knows, maybe she'd like to wake up next to this dogbreath."

"Dogbreath's my cousin," the ghoul rumbled. Mayer kicked him in the side of the head, mock laughing at his remark.

They handcuffed the ghoul by his bad arm to the bed, because Mayer thought it would be hilarious to watch him try to get comfortable. Wade rolled his eyes and resumed his watch, outside.

"I do not want to be you, when Bradley gets back," Mayer said.

"Me either," Wade muttered.

* * *

Celia woke with a nasty taste in her mouth. The skin on her stomach was on fire. She coughed and moaned, then opened her eyes to see Lionel studying her. She turned her head and spat vomit.

"Morning, sunshine," he said, sarcastically.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked at her wrist, cuffed to the bed frame. She felt her chest tightening and tried not to hyperventilate. "Oh, _God,"_ she whimpered, pulling on the cuffs. "What happened?"

"Got our asses handed to us," Lionel said. He was laying on his back, his arm bleeding darkly onto the mattress.

She breathed quicker, and pulled harder on her wrist. A thin sound came from her.

"Calm down, kid," Lionel said, closing his eyes.

"I always get out," she muttered. _"Always."_ She sat up and put her feet on the bars of the bed, pulling on her cuffed wrist as hard as she could. _"Help me,"_ she moaned. Tears fell from her eyes.

"What?" he grumbled. "I couldn't even move if I was forced to."

She forced herself to calm down. "When I was fourteen," she said, fear edging into her voice, "I was caught stealing couch cushions from Mavis Pottin's quarters. Officer Pesaro cuffed me to a chair in the security office. I―" she sniffled and pulled on her arm again, grunting.

Lionel turned his head and looked at her. _"I broke my wrist,"_ she said, through gritted teeth, pushing with her feet and lifting herself up off the bed.

"Give me a minute, okay?" he rasped, and closed his eyes again.

Celia tried to calm her breathing and failed. "What if Bradley was lying?" she whimpered. "They want to go back to Stockton, what if they hurt Li―" She cried harder.

"God_dammit,_ Celia," Lionel said, and pushed himself up, slowly, with a lot of grunting. "Calm the fuck down."

She cried harder and pulled on her arm. "What if" kept running through her head, starting with "what if I can't get free".

"You know this is going to _hurt,_ right?" he asked her, looking her in the eyes. His starry ones looked concerned. She nodded frantically, and wiped her face. "No blame," he added.

"No blame," she said, quavering.

Lionel wrapped his good arm around her cuffed one, and pulled roughly. Celia flew backwards, as the frame of the bed creaked and gave way under the force. A piece of the bar ricocheted back at her face and hit her abroad, and she yelped. Her cheek and forehead began to bleed, and her wrist hurt like hell.

She sat upright and picked up the bar, holding up her scraped wrist with the cuffs still dangling from them. Lionel made a noise she'd never heard before, removing his arm from hers. "What?" she asked, wiping blood and tears from her eye.

"Nothing," he answered, and slowly laid himself back down. "You're free." He closed his eyes again.

She breathed slower, calming herself down. The adrenaline from the fear made her feel weakened. She untucked her shirt and wiped blood from her face, then looked down at Lionel's arm.

That jerk had done a number on the already ravaged skin on his arm. She could see the blood caked onto patches of skin, the torn muscle on his bicep and forearm ripped open. About a hand's length from his shoulder, the bone was peeking out. She swallowed and willed her tears to stay put. No one deserved that kind of beating.

Celia ran her hand along his good arm and put her hand on his, squeezing. He jerked at her touch, then calmed, but didn't open his eyes. "I'm _sorry,_ Lionel," she whispered.

"If we get out of this," he muttered quietly, "I guess I'll forgive you. But we're probably going to die."

She released his hand and moved off the bed. She wiped blood from her face again and poked at the cuts, while searching for anything that might be useful in the shack. A knife had fallen behind the fridge in the corner, and she put it through her belt loop.

Celia picked up a box and looked through it, and found two bottles of whiskey. In another corner she found an acetylene torch striker. She squeezed it a few times, watching the sparks fall. In the other hand, she held the whiskey. An idea came to mind.

"You're insane, kid," he grumbled from the bed.

"What?" she looked over her shoulder at him. He shook his head at her, watching her.

"Whatever your plan is―"

"I don't plan things," Celia said, resolutely, and ripped a clean part strip of her shirt, then uncapped the whiskey and stuffed the fabric into the neck of the bottle.

"I couldn't tell," he said, dryly.

"We've got to get out of here," she said, retrieving the other bottle and doing the same to it.

"I ain't going nowhere," he said, grunting in pain.

"Whatever. I'm going to go get shot," she said, and she remembered her visit to his shack. Her hand paused on the door, but she pushed it open, despite her trepidation.

Immediately the lens of a laser pistol was in her face. "While I admire your unspoken tenacity, Miss Landis," Bradley said, "I'd hate for you to get shot."

She dropped the whiskey and pulled the knife, brandishing it. "You shouldn't have me for a hostage, then!" she said, her voice unsteady. "I just want to go home."

"You will be returned to Stockton very soon," Bradley said. "Please, go back inside. I will collect you and the ghoul, when we are ready to leave. Should be any moment."

Celia hesitated, and looked back inside the room. "Lionel needs medical attention," she said, turning back to Bradley.

Bradley moved closer. _"Please,"_ he said again.

She felt deflated. Everything she tried to do, anymore, she felt like she could never do right. She turned, and went back inside the shack. Bradley pushed the door shut. She sluggishly moved to the bed, and sat down.

Her face was bleeding, again, and she dabbed at it, numbly. She felt tiny and helpless, and wished that she could climb into a hole and die. Celia started to sob, and tried to stop herself, but the situation was so dire―every single time someone had called her stupid came floating back into her mind. She curled up with her knees at her chest, lay down on her side and let it all out.

A heavy arm came around her side. She jumped, but realized it was Lionel. He grabbed her hand like she'd grabbed his, and squeezed roughly. "It'll be alright, kid."

"No, it won't!" she mumbled. He let go, and she balled up her fists against her eyes. "I thought that, if I left the Vault, I would fit in better out here! I _don't!"_

Lionel sighed, and laid a hand flat on her back, giving her a little shove. "It's been an _extremely_ long time since I was a teenager," he said, slowly, "but I am pretty sure you'll live to be embarrassed about this."

The door opened, then, and she wept, burying her face in the mattress.


	23. Physical Assets

Lionel couldn't remember the last time he was in this kind of pain. Made so much worse by the rough pace the soldiers set, and the camping on the hard ground under the stars, his entire left shoulder, arm and ribs were on engulfed in agony. The last kick that Mayer had aimed at his head had probably broken his eardrum. He might be deaf on that side for the rest of his life.

_However long _that_ is,_ he thought, shooting a glance at the soldiers. Celia had offered him a shoulder, once she'd stopped freaking out about the jam they were in, but he'd refused. The way the tall bastard was acting, he didn't want to risk another beating. He _did_ want Celia to stop acting like he was falling apart, though. She hadn't left him alone since they started walking, acting a hell of a lot like Lilian and asking him how his arm was every few miles.

He was exhausted by the time the group had reached a familiar spot above I-75. It didn't help that he couldn't sleep easily with the pain, or that he had decided to stay awake while the Mayer fucker was on guard. Celia slept too easily for her own good, sprawled out on the ground beside him. He didn't understand why they were even still alive.

"Let's move, trash," Mayer called out, and jabbed at Lionel with his gatling laser.

Lionel ignored him, and kept his ambling pace. The short soldier jabbed him in the arm with his fancy rifle and probed the bone. Lionel grimaced and muffled a groan.

Celia stopped in her tracks. "You leave him _alone!"_ she said, in a serious voice.

"Or what, you little shit," the short soldier said.

She whipped out the acetylene striker, put it up near the visor of his helmet and struck it a few times. Sparks bounced off the armor. She started to say something, but the short one lifted an arm and backhanded her, knocking her down to the ground. Mayer helped her up, his hands lingering a little too long on her back. She moved back to Lionel's side, her mouth so thin it was turning white.

"Don't agitate," he said. It would only lead to worse things, he thought. Especially the way Mayer was being "friendly". Lionel fixed an eye on the tall man.

"They started it," she said, coldly.

He sighed. All that anger, but no outlet. Was that ever familiar; he could still recall his old man beating the hellion out of him, unsuccessfully.

"What do you suppose," Mayer said, slowly, as they passed a stand of trees, "is going on between these two?"

The short one made a disgusted noise. "Is that _all_ you ever think about, man?"

"You noticed it, too?" Mayer laughed, echoing.

Lionel, if his face still had the necessary elements, would have had an expression of loathing on it. He shot a look at Bradley, wondering if he even listened over his shoulder.

The young one came around and said, "I seriously doubt that's the case, Mayer." Lionel looked at him from the corner of his eye. He hadn't said much since the trip began.

"Why's that, monster bait?" Mayer asked.

The other shrugged his shoulders. "Probably fell off," he said.

_"Fuck you, kid,"_ Lionel snapped. Mayer and the short one burst into uproarious laughter. Bradley barked out an order and cut them short.

Celia shot Lionel a curious look and he almost lost his temper with them all. Of _all_ the things she might think about him―he didn't need a mopey teenager bugging him about his _personal_ business. He clenched his right fist, then his left, and hissed in pain.

"Mr. Mayer," Celia said, changing the subject, "what were you saying about the exalted?"

"Christ," the short one said.

"If you stopped taking his name in vain..." Mayer said.

"I never heard anything like it," she said, turning to Mayer. "A lot of things out here are new to me."

Lionel groaned, inwardly.

"Oh?" Mayer said, suggestively. "Like what?" He put a hand on her shoulder and leaned toward her.

"Mayer!" Bradley called. "You want to join Wade on contact point?"

"No, sir!" Mayer said, and backed off. Bradley came to stand by Celia, who looked upset.

Lionel saw the rocks coming up ahead, and stumbled in a small hole, landing on his right side. Celia learned down to help him up, and he said, "Lake."

She frowned, then stood. "Mr. Bradley? We've been walking a long time. Could we have a short break, please?"

Bradley nodded. "Everyone take a breather."

Wade came back from contact point and stood guard near Celia and Lionel. He pushed himself up onto his behind and rotated his right arm, stretching it. Celia consulted her Pip-Boy. "Lake?" she muttered.

"Lake," he said.

"Isn't that―"

"Don't," he stopped her. The lake bed was less than 200 feet from his shack. He knew the risks. Wouldn't it be nice, he thought, if he could get in there and dig out that grenade he'd stashed away?

"Here," she said, passing him a Med-X needle.

"No," he said, pushing away her hand. _"No."_

"Are you sure?" she asked, and he shook his head at her.

Celia stood and walked to Bradley, showing him her map. "If we take a shortcut," she said, "we can get there a bit faster."

"Who is in charge at this Stockton place?" Bradley asked.

"Over―" she cleared her throat. "Jack Calhoun."

"How many residents?"

Celia counted on her fingers like a small child. "Thirty? Maybe less."

"And," Bradley jabbed a finger at her chest, "are there any defenses we should know about? I can and will shoot any combatants, so you know."

Celia hesitated. _Don't do it,_ Lionel thought. _Let it be a surprise._

"There were some robots," she said. "We disabled them." _Good girl,_ he thought.

Bradley looked satisfied. "When we get about half a mile away, I want you," he jabbed her again, "to go and fetch this Jack Calhoun. The ghoul will stay here, with us."

_Huh,_ Lionel thought. _Never been used as a bargaining chip before. That's new._ But, _hell,_ Celia should know better. If it were reversed―he exhaled. Dammit, he'd _still_ have to come back and get her. Lilian would bite his head off if he'd left her alone with these assholes.

Celia nodded. "Okay," she said.

That night, they camped very near Lionel's shack. He could hear the chittering of the ants again, and kept one eye on the lake bed. The soldiers appeared to be a deterrent for the pests. Lionel was grateful. Didn't want to wake up being eaten alive.

Celia sat down against his back, almost leaning on him. He was trying to sleep on his right side, but it was too uncomfortable. "Lionel," she whispered.

"You talk too much, kid," he grumbled.

"I'm scared," she said. "What do I do?" She pulled her knees up to her chest and laid her forehead on them.

He rolled onto his back, grunting in pain. "Do what they said. Don't worry," he said, wryly, "I'm sure we'll all be dead tomorrow."

She was crying again. "I messed up everything," she moaned.

"If I were you, kid," he muttered, "I'd come back with all them robots, or not come back _at all."_

"I won't leave you here―" she whispered, sounding horrified at the thought. "They'll _kill_ you!"

"No one lives forever," he said, "even me. At least I'll see it coming."

Celia kept crying for a little while, then laid herself down onto the ground and slept. Lionel stared up at the sky for a long time. _Hell,_ he thought. _I'm really bad at trying to be friendly._


	24. Defiled

Calhoun was going over inventory slips, and cursing whoever had invented the process, when Celia returned after having been gone for over a week. She looked hungry, dirty, and bloody, with a cut running from her right forehead to her left cheek.

"Well," Calhoun said to her, his patience thin, "thanks to your little expedition, the town almost lost a few Brahmin calves."

"We have a major problem," she said, sounding older than she usually did, "so shut up and listen to me, for once."

"I've always listened to you, Celia," he said, carefully.

She detailed a fantastic story about soldiers in some town called On-the-Bay, who were exploding some kind of giant octopus underneath the waters. She told him that Lionel had shown up and gotten hurt, and how the soldiers were holding him hostage until she returned with Calhoun to speak with their leader.

"I know I messed everything up," she said, nearing tears. Calhoun poured a cup of the terrible coffee that Darla served him every morning. "And you can imprison or kill me or whatever, but Lionel deserves to be saved."

"What exactly do they want from me?" Calhoun asked her.

"Power armor, probably our munitions and robots too," she said. "I had to tell them. You know how bad I am at lying."

Calhoun sighed. "Well," he said, and pinched his nose. "Who are they?"

"I don't know," she said. "I heard one of them talking about something called Paramount, and another one mentioned a place called Detroit."

"For the love of―" he started, and sighed. She sniffled a little.

"They're going to _kill_ him," she said, looking down, "because I went and got in trouble and Lilian asked him to help." She wrung her hands.

Calhoun did not like to see her so depressed, and sighed to himself. "Alright, let's check it out." He dispatched Jacob and Gus to check up on the soldiers, and called in Pesaro and Mike, to explain the story to them.

"There are most definitely four people in power armor up on the dry lake bed," Jacob said. "And Lionel is up there, too. You are in some deep shit this time," he directed at Celia, who shook a little and wiped her eyes. Gus added in that the firepower of the group was much more advanced than they had access to, other than the sentry bot.

"It might be a good idea to try to touch base with them," Pesaro said. "If we are more aware of the politics of the region, maybe we could advance community goals."

"It would do us a world of good to have more supplies for the town," Calhoun said. "All we can really offer up is repair and electronics skills, however."

Mike chuckled a little. "Maybe Pesaro was right about building robots."

"They aren't going to talk with you," Celia mumbled. "They're only going to hurt us."

"That sort of thing usually depends on how we go about our initial contact," Calhoun told her, softly.

"We may not have the people to defend ourselves," Pesaro said, "against technology like these men have, but we do have the robots. Not even power armor can withstand all the robots, put together."

"So, what, we'll offer to deal with them?" Mike asked.

"They'll still kill us all," Celia muttered.

Mike shot her an annoyed look. "Gee, and who do we have to thank for _that?"_

She sputtered a bit. Calhoun stepped in. "Look, if you're that concerned, let us work out this plan. It'll be a lot easier if you aren't acting like this, Celia."

She pushed herself up off the couch and stared at him. "Acting like _what?"_ she asked, challenging him.

"Stupid," said Pesaro. "Running like an idiot off to have an adventure, abandoning your job and your animals, and not even _bothering_ to let someone know where you were?"

"I'm not going to leave Lionel out there with _those bastards!"_ she nearly shouted, clenching her fists.

"Celia," Calhoun said, gently.

"I don't know why you'd bother with that nasty old zombie, anyway," Pesaro said, flipping through the papers on the desk.

"He's ten times a better person than you!" she yelled. "I'm starting to wonder why I bother to stay here, anyway! All you _ever_ do is say I'm _stupid!"_ She pointed at Mike. "I am not an idiot and I am not treating someone _else_ like you treat _me!"_

Calhoun escorted her from the room, and shot the men a parting look. They'd made her upset with truths and while Calhoun didn't think she was stupid, he did think she was a bit immature to be dealing with her problems by yelling like that. "You know I don't think of you like that," he said.

She pulled her arm away from him and scoffed, walking away. Calhoun followed her outside, watching her. "At least stay until we get the robots in position, Celia," he said.

"No," she said, "if I'm no good here, I'm no good anywhere. I'm going back and if I die, so be it."

_A decidedly bad time for her to start acting serious,_ he thought to himself. _Teenagers!_ He followed her, though, because his conscience would have killed him. If the soldiers were serious about her bringing him to speak with them, he ought to extend the invitation the opposite way.

"Benjamin!" he yelled. "Send Sergeant Sawyer out with me!"

Calhoun sighed to himself once more and followed the impetuous young girl out into the wastes, a slightly battered Mister Gutsy trailing behind.

* * *

Wade would be on contact point for the next two weeks, isolated from Sigma for having lost a prisoner (even if he did get her back) and causing Sigma to lose face. And Wade had failed to utilize his equipment properly, so he was being punished with contact point.

As Wade was leaving the group to scout the area one more time, Mayer described for the ghoul what happened to the defiled who entered Detroit. He shook his head at the description.

"First," Mayer said, "you will submit yourself to the High Ferrule, who will judge your worthiness. If you are considered worthy, you will join the exalted in the Temple." He smiled at the thought. Wade knew Mayer's father had been considered exalted. "But you, my mephitic friend, are corrupt and will invariably be judged as defiled."

"If you're trying to insult me," Lionel answered, snarkily, "you should dumb down your words."

Mayer grabbed Lionel's left arm and twisted it, causing the ghoul to shout out in pain. "Then, once judge defiled, you will be thrown into the Sepulchre at Golgotha, where Phaeton will send his army of demons to _gnaw upon you until you are nothing but bone!"_

Wade shuddered. Every kid in Detroit knew about Phaeton. A boogeyman of terrifyingly real proportion, who ate up bad children and the defiled. For someone who knew what it was like to occasionally wake up and find a giant rat chewing on his feet, the prospect was not unimaginable. Wade had worked very hard to get himself out of the slums, where light was never visible even in the daytime. The manufacturing plants produced too many toxic fumes and too much smoke. He was glad he no longer had to look forward to working at the refitted Chryslus plant.

On contact point, Wade was essentially bait. He scouted the area around where Sigma was moving, seeking and destroying opposition. Out here, it was more like a pleasant walk through the woods as relatively few critters were about.

His motion detector beeped, pulling him out of his thoughts, and he moved to the area located. "Dammit, Wade," he said to himself. "Gotta keep on that."

Perhaps Control had been wrong to assign him to Sigma. Hazards Response Division wasn't what he'd expected when he applied for a military post. He was a tech, for goodness sake! What did he know about shooting things, he hadn't seen a Lakelurk before in his entire life. Sometimes he imagined that he was a test for Bradley, rather than a potential team member.

Wade rounded a tall hill and came across the girl, arguing with an older black man. "Let me go!" she was saying. The man had her by the wrist. A Gutsy-model robot hovered nearby, sounding off on Wade's approach.

Wade raised his pistol. "Back down," he ordered, sweeping the gun across the two. "Are you Calhoun?" he asked the man.

"Yes. Who are you?"

Wade waved his pistol at them, motioning that they should follow. "Wade," he said. "Paramount Force Sigma."

Celia fell in step. "Is Lionel okay?" she asked, worriedly.

Wade didn't answer. He heard her make a small thin noise. "So help me, Celia," Calhoun said, "if you say anything while I'm trying to talk to these men..."

She went quiet. Wade smiled to himself. At least he wasn't the one who was in the most trouble.

The three people and the robot moved across the lake bed to join up with Sigma.


	25. Education

Thoughts moved through Lionel's head like the gearshift of a rusted out Corvega. He wasn't thinking so straight, after Mayer had grabbed his bad arm and twisted it around like a bottlecap. The pain was intense―at least, at his shoulder. After his bicep, he couldn't feel anything at all. Fingers no longer responded when he tried to move them.

_Fucking great,_ he thought. _All I got left is strength, and now that's gone._ He watched Mayer, and growled. "Just fucking _kill_ me," he said.

"Tsk! I'd _love_ to, you walking pile of dog shit, but I simply am not _allowed_ to." He laughed, echoing, "That will be Phaeton's pleasure!"

Lionel just shook his head at that, and stayed put, stuck in the middle of the three soldiers. Celia had left her pack behind, and he picked through it. A few meds, an extra shirt, some ammo. No food. His hand brushed against a piece of metal and he pulled it out, squinting at it. Looked like a palm-sized L-beam, but was too rusted to tell what it might have been. He placed it back into the pack and picked up a needle of med-x.

When he was younger, before the War, he'd worked on all manner of watercraft. Until he met Joey Landis, who offered him the job at the yacht club. The man was an idiot, that was for sure. The stupid was so strong in that family... Lionel laughed to himself. It was a wonder that his grandchildren had survived to live in the wasteland.

The yacht club had been nice on the outside, but the people, hell, even the other employees... Lionel hadn't fit in at all. He expected that was how Celia felt about Stockton, and why he didn't blame her for being upset. But, much like how Celia was ruing the arrival of the soldiers in Stockton, he'd also rued ever taking that job. That day when he'd lost his toes, and the job, he'd sworn off Joey Landis.

_Should have extended that to every Landis,_ he thought, holding the needle in his palm. He'd lost his toes, and gained an addiction. Lost his houseboat and everything that he'd worked for, too.

It seemed so far away, only to be shoved right back into his face. This needle could relieve him of the pain in his side, but had destroyed him in the past. Even thinking about using it―

The Wade kid marched back into camp with Celia and Calhoun. Following them was Sergeant Sawyer, the robot that had injured Celia. Lionel shoved the needle into his pocket. She was at his side in a moment, and gasped. "What happened?"

He didn't reply. She touched his shoulder and he groaned. _Goddammit,_ he thought, _leave me alone._

Calhoun shot a glance at Lionel and then looked at each of the soldiers. "Mr. Bradley?" he asked.

Bradley stepped forward and gave the little three-fingered salute that reminded Lionel of the Boy Scouts. "I am Bradley, of Paramount Force Sigma."

"Jack Calhoun, mayor of Stockton." He extended a hand.

_Figures,_ Lionel thought. _Bunch of good folk, doomed by their damn manners._ Bradley ignored the handshake, instead opting to stare at the man.

"Celia tells me you are interested in our power armor?" Calhoun asked.

"Yes," Bradley said, "though I suspect she may have worded it differently."

Calhoun considered the soldier for a moment. "We have no use for it," he said. "I see no reason why I cannot give you the armor."

"That is good to hear," Bradley replied. " Because it doesn't belong to you."

Calhoun smiled, baring big white teeth in his brown face. "Mr. Bradley, I would love to have you for a drink," he said, friendlier than Lionel would have expected. "Would you and your men care to join us, in Stockton?"

Bradley indicated that they would. Calhoun shook his hand, finally, and promised no harm would come to the soldiers. Lionel couldn't believe the audacity of the former Overseer.

When they stood to travel, Celia offered him her shoulder again. This time, Lionel took it.

* * *

She was furious at that tall bastard. Celia escorted Lionel to Dr. Boyer's clinic, followed by Mayer and Angus, to be treated. When Ida shook her head and sighed at the amount of damage Lionel's arm had sustained, Celia fixed Mayer with the meanest glare she could muster.

He only laughed at her, the sound ringing in the filter systems of his power helmet.

"I'm not a ghoul doctor," Ida said, rubbing her eye. "What do you think, Lionel?"

"Cut it off," he said, casually. Ida and Celia started in surprise.

The nurse-turned-doctor raised an eyebrow. "I'll have to call in Jen," she said.

"No," Celia said. "You can do it, Ida." She didn't want Jen coming to Stockton. Lilian would certainly come with her, and might hit the ceiling when she found out what had happened. And the soldiers were not very friendly toward ghouls...

"I've never performed an amputation before," Ida said. "Much rather have someone experienced to help."

"It's halfway there," Lionel said. "Just saw through it." His voice was firm.

Ida sighed. "Very well! If you have any lingering effects, you can't blame me." She offered him pain meds, and he refused again. Celia wondered why, if it was a ghoul issue or if he just didn't want it.

The group moved into the operating room. Ida activated the clinic's Mister Handy.

Lionel cracked his neck, rolled up his sleeve, and made himself comfortable on the gurney. Ida controlled the Handy's saw with the console. Despite Mike's best efforts, it was locked out of it's automatic routines, and would stay that way.

"Celia, hold him down," Ida said, and moved the Mister Handy into position. Celia reached over Lionel, put one hand on his shoulder, and leaned onto him. He grunted in pain. She fought back a feeling of fear, and brushed her other hand against his right arm.

"You ready?" Ida asked.

Lionel closed his eyes, grasped Celia's hand with his, and said, "Yeah."

His face contorted as Ida cut through the flesh above the break. Celia choked back a wince and kept the pressure on his shoulder. She felt regret for causing him to lose his arm, through her foolishness.

Ida switched off the saw after a minute, and knocked away the ghoul's arm. She bandaged what she could, quickly, and told him it would have to be done properly at a later point. Lionel kept his mouth shut tight and didn't open his eyes, nodding.

Celia tried to remove her hand from his, but he had a grip on her that she couldn't get out of. She pried back his fingers, silently. Mayer laughed again, and Celia lost her temper.

"What the _hell_ is wrong with you?!" she yelled, and stomped over to him, thumping his chest plate with the side of her hand.

Angus elbowed Mayer, made a jerking motion with his head. Mayer grabbed Celia's arm, and dragged her into the main room of the clinic, slamming the operating room door behind him. She yelped, and tried to escape his grasp.

Mayer pulled her to the desk and let her go, unlatching his helmet. She rubbed her wrist, which was already sore from the cuffs, and glared at him. Her expression moved to nervous shock when he removed his helmet.

_Whoa!_ she thought. Mayer was extremely handsome―pretty boy, Lionel had said, and she knew he'd meant it. A chiseled jaw, defined nose, soft blue eyes and blond stubble greeted her. Mayer grinned at her face. She could only stare.

"I think that you do not fully understand the problem," he said, the grin not leaving his face. "I'm more than willing to explain to you."

"Talk, then," she said, curtly.

Mayer leaned on the desk, sitting on the edge. His face level with hers, he said, "People in Detroit, who turn into that," and he pointed at the O.R. door, "are brought before the High Ferrule at the Temple of Solomon, where they are judged. It is an honorable thing to happen to oneself."

"And that's your boss," she stated. "This High Ferrule."

Mayer laughed. Celia decided it was less creepy when he didn't have the helmet on, but still unpleasant. "He's... well, the High Ferrule is what one would call a moral leader. Sigma is ordered by Paramount, and Paramount works together with the High Ferrule."

She shook her head. People would do anything survive, she supposed. Whatever this ridiculous religious system was, it must be successful.

"This is the important bit, though." Mayer raised a hand, palm facing her. "When a ghoul is judged worthy, he or she becomes exalted, and is placed into the Temple of Solomon. They will never feel pain, never go hungry, never worry ever again." He smiled at some internal thought, and she raised an eyebrow.

"Exalted," she said, and crossed her arms.

"Yes," he said, brightly. His eyes crinkled at her. She willed her heart not to skip a beat.

"And the others?"

Mayer sighed, then, and a darker look came over his face. "Those who are judged defiled..."

_"How_ is Lionel defiled?" she asked, interrupting. "He's one of the best people I've _ever_ met!"

"Any ghoul who doesn't follow the teachings is defiled," Mayer said, giving her a critical look.

"That's dumb," she said, mulishly.

"I didn't write the teachings," he replied. His expression didn't change. He looked her up and down, making her uncomfortable. "Any defiled who 'associates' with the rest of us, is automatically subject to execution."

A sharp feeling ran up her spine, and she stood straighter, blood pooling in her cheeks. "Lionel is a _friend!"_ she hissed. "Nothing else!"

"Good," Mayer said, and stood up. He grabbed her and ran a hand along her hips, pulling her to him. "You're too cute to waste on that trash."

Celia shrieked, angrily, and pushed away from him, but he held her firm, grabbing the back of her head by her hair and forcing her to look him in the eyes. He released her with a push and she tumbled to the floor, landing on her knees. The acetylene striker fell out of her pocket.

"I think, with some teaching, you would make a decent woman," Mayer said, laughing, and put his helmet onto his head. The door to the O.R. opened, Angus pushing Lionel out in front of him and Ida bringing up the rear.

"What happened here?" Ida asked, sharply, looking at Celia on the floor.

Mayer reattached his helmet and tapped it twice with a knuckle, near the forehead. "Education," he said.

Celia closed her eyes, swallowing the fear and anger and helplessness she felt. She pushed herself up off the floor, brushed off her hands, and stalked out of the clinic without a word.


	26. Blast Atomica

Bradley and Wade sat in the mess hall, while Calhoun explained the Vault situation to Sigma's leader. He told him about how they had chosen to leave and were attempting to build a town here, at the military base. "We need help, though," he added. "This place is relatively unknown and attracts very few traders or travelers. Our core skills as a group revolve around the computer and engineering fields, so we're not exactly producing surplus food."

"Have you any knowledge of resonance barriers, or generator pylons?" Bradley asked.

"Some," Calhoun said.

"What about mast radiators?"

"We can learn," Calhoun assured him. "I'd like to be able to work together with your group, to increase our supplies and move forward."

Bradley looked at the man, considering. "I can report your allegiance to Control," he said, "but it will require a few days' travel to the south." The soldier looked at Calhoun,then turned to Wade. "Tell Sigma to report."

"Sir!" Wade said, then paused. "Sir?"

"What is it, Wade?"

"The ghoul, sir?"

Bradley turned to Calhoun. "This ghoul, that found Sigma."

"Lionel," Calhoun said. "He's sort of... friend? I guess, to Celia. She made first contact with the outside world."

"Does he live in Stockton?" Bradley asked.

Calhoun was a little taken back. "Lord, no," he said. "He's got a shack somewhere else."

Bradley nodded. "If I were a prudent man, I would have him go home."

"Most certainly."

Bradley turned to Wade. "Sigma must report," he reminded him, firmly. Wade marched away. Behind the men, Celia marched into the mess hall, grabbed a few cans of food, and marched out. Bradley eyed the girl. "What is that one's story?" he asked.

Calhoun snorted a little laugh. "Our local wild child," he said.

"Did she report to you that she interfered with our operation?"

Calhoun sighed. "Yes," he said. "I'd like to hear more about this exploding octopus, actually. Let me get you that drink."

* * *

Mayer and Angus cracked a few jokes at Lionel's expense, after Celia left. He ignored it, turned his deaf ear to them, and picked up the acetylene striker she'd dropped.

His shoulder ached, so much he could barely stay upright. He squeezed the striker, watched the sparks fly off it. Based on what he'd heard through the door, he suspected Mayer had suggested something inappropriate again. He pocketed the striker and felt the warm metal through his pants on his thigh.

Very little surprised him, anymore. Losing his arm, sure as hell surprised him. Celia, trying to be his friend, surprised him. The multiple suggestions that he might even remotely be interested in her, not so much. And the predictable men making those suggestions, not at all. Stupid men, doing stupid things. It wasn't amusing.

Pain took a backseat to memory. He remembered Michael Harper. A thug, in charge, much like Angus and Mayer. When they'd met the first time, he'd gotten himself barred from Grayling for a few years. That was a punch well-placed, and he smiled at that. But then, he frowned, because that hand was gone now.

He thought about Lilian and Max Swanton. Max, the right hand of Michael, running town like they owned it. Bullying the traders and shopkeepers, threatening to shoot anyone who disagreed. Lilian had been whole, then, and was such a vain little priss. She had no idea what was going on. When she began the change, Max had abandoned her. Michael kicked her out of town. Then Max disappeared, and the only person who even knew where he might be... _Well,_ Lionel chuckled to himself. _I'm certainly not going to tell._

Michael was kicked out of town by the residents. Lilian tried to follow him, but Jen had prevented it. That was when he was asked to help Lilian. How Jen felt about him, he had no idea, but it was a convenient way to let the dust settle after the Harper-Swanton mess in town. And Lionel had been lonely for a long time, at that point.

He looked at the soldiers, still laughing to themselves. The kid, Wade, came in and ordered them to report. Mayer was reluctant to leave the "defiled" behind. Lionel ignored it, focused on another memory.

He pulled the med-x needle from his pocket, and stared at it. He'd been homeless when the bombs fell, back in 2077. Long before the black rain came, he was used to having to scrounge for food, shelter, and drugs. Joey Landis had gotten married, bought space in a Vault, and rode out the apocalypse in safety. Lionel didn't remember much about how he'd survived. Many, many, years of killing and roaming.

He jabbed the needle into his leg and depressed the plunger, and the pain began to fade away.

Relief flooded through him, and he wobbled from side to side, feeling the familiar wash of numbness over his brain. Eventually, his legs worked themselves home, but he didn't even notice.

* * *

Celia climbed to the top of Lionel's shack and drummed her feet against the corrugated metal. With binoculars, she could just make out the soldiers north of Stockton, erecting something similar to a radio tower. It had been cobbled together from existing tower pieces and other metal, and actually looked fairly good.

She hadn't gone back to town. Lionel had come up the ledge in a daze and barely made it into the shack before passing out. She wondered how badly it hurt. She'd never had any injury worse than that saw to her back. And she was concerned, because she'd been making a lot of noise, and he'd not woken up.

She watched the soldiers, working with Joel Bailman, pushing the tower to a standing position. Mayer was down there. The tall man loomed over everyone, and she could hear his laughter bouncing around in her head. She dropped the binoculars and climbed back down to the ground level. She wouldn't go back, until he was gone.

Celia looked at the shack door. She wouldn't let Lionel go anywhere, either. He roamed the area frequently, when he wasn't working on electronics. Now, he couldn't do either one of those things. Tears stung her eyes. Her fault.

She went inside, and lifted his remaining arm. It dropped limply to the mattress, and he didn't respond. He'd been asleep for almost half the day. He was breathing normally, but... She wondered if she ought to get him to drink some water or something. Lilian had mentioned once that ghouls were especially prone to dehydration, since they had little skin to keep the moisture in.

_Lilian._ She sighed to herself. Celia had wanted to go back to Grayling and tell her about what had happened. She felt she couldn't risk the soldiers even following her, though. Mayer was still down there, even if Angus and Bradley had gone south. And Lilian probably still thought that Lionel was out looking for her. The longer they were away, the longer she would worry, but hopefully Dr. Jen would convince her that they were alive.

She sat at the table in the shack, blew a curl out of her hair, and stared at her feet. There wasn't much for her to do, while waiting for him to wake up. She'd already cleaned up the messy pan that had been on the stove, which took all of five minutes to scour. There was Lionel's corner for his electronics, but she didn't dare touch them, and Lilian had taken her sewing bag with her. The shack was devoid of conscious company or anything remotely interesting to do.

She walked her fingers across the table. If she was younger, she would have pretended to be Blast Atomica, the superheroine who saved the Vault from Dr. Geiger, or Captain Celia Landtheship, which was what she'd called herself before she'd been scared out of space adventure. Playing like that, now, would get her killed.

Celia wondered if someone could grow up, but still feel like a child. She sunk her head down onto her crossed arms, laying them on the table. She made a funny face, then frowned, staring sideways across the room. All the hurt from before, that she'd pushed down inside, started to break through the walls in her head.

Mayer... treating her like that. Calhoun, too, but at least he'd been better than Mayer. And he'd backed off, unlike Mayer. She dug her fingernails into her arms. She and Lionel should lay low for a while. They would be safe, as long as Mayer didn't find them. And she knew Calhoun wouldn't tell anyone where Lionel lived, if Celia was there.

She was safe with Lionel. Even in his present condition... she looked over her arm at him. He'd come looking for her, because Lilian asked him to.

_He also called you shit-for-brains,_ her head mumbled. _...Probably called that one, though._ She felt beaten down by all the insults she'd received since her arrival in Stockton.

"Stupid," Pesaro said.

"Moron," Mike Rind said.

"Inconsiderate, deceitful, child," Ann said.

"You're being dumb." Ed said. "Give up your adventures and grow up!"

"Don't be a Celia," someone told another person, behind her back.

She didn't want to think about those words. She sat back in the chair and made her hands walk across the table again, meeting in the middle. "You put my men in danger!" she growled, imitating Bradley.

"I had to do something," the other hand said, in her own voice. "I thought the monster was gonna eat him!"

"You shouldn't have tried to save me," Wade-hand said. "I'm just going to shock you and hurt people."

"I didn't know you were a bad guy," Celia-hand replied.

"What a shame." Wade-hand threw up his thumb arm and waggled it. "You can't trust the people you grew up with, so you go looking for things that turn out way _worse."_

Celia-hand smacked the other hand, hard. She tightened her lips, feeling tears threatening her eyes.

Lionel made a noise behind her, and she jumped in embarrassment. She turned to look at him, but he'd only changed position on the bed. She was relieved; she didn't want to have to explain why she'd been acting like that.

She wondered what he was like with Lilian, when they were alone. He'd shown an awful lot of affection for her, lately, but she figured that was just the pain and the frightening prospect of being killed. She wondered what he was like, when he really lost his temper. So far, he'd been the same old grump, calmly accepting the situation and rarely raising his voice.

She wondered if he was scared, now.

"Hey," she said. "Are you awake?" No answer.

Celia went outside, climbed back onto the roof, and watched the men putting up the tower again, but this time she watched them through her rifle scope.


	27. Contact Point

Wade had spent a long time on that tower, only to have it knocked down by someone or something. It really didn't matter how it had happened, to him, just that he had to put it back together. Mayer and the burly Joel Bailman, while hard workers, were not exactly capable when it came to understanding the points he tried to make. The ground wires had been almost destroyed.

How was he supposed to generate an infrasonic signal with this shit equipment? It was hard enough already, being put on duty with Mayer.

"Who do you think took it down?" Mayer was asking Joel.

"Dunno. Not too many people in Stockton would ruin something on purpose." He scratched the stubble on his chin. "Maybe the Landis girl."

"So! She has a _history,_ then." Mayer laughed.

"Ah, well." Joel held a bar of metal up to Wade on the top of the radio building. "We'll just get more practice putting it back together. I'm sure it will crash again."

"It's not the tower that's the problem," Wade said. "Someone deliberately messed with the ground wires. I'll have to dig them out and run them again."

"Probably was Celia, then," Mayer joked. "That one loves screwing us up."

"Calhoun ought to kick her scrawny ass out, after all this. She ran off on us when the Brahmin were calving, and some of them might have died." Joel handed Wade up another beam.

"Maybe you'll get lucky and some handsome brute will sweep her off her feet."

"I don't think she'd be interested in _you,_ Mayer," Wade said, fitting the beam into place.

"We'll see. You know how persuasive I can be."

"Ugh!" Joel dropped a bar. "What the hell?" He kicked it away. "Slime or something."

Mayer picked up the bar and looked at it. "Ants," he said. "Wade!"

Wade placed the last piece and looked out over the wastes, in all directions. "Couple mounds over in the dry lake bed," he said, pointing east.

"You're still on contact point, _rookie."_

Wade sighed, and climbed down from the building. Pulling out his pistol, he swept the nearby area and took down two giant ants. He walked out onto the lake bed, where nothing except a few straggling bushes were growing, and examined the two mounds. His power armor chafed him, and he adjusted his shoulder, trying to work the cloth back under the metal.

The motion detector picked up several giant ants in each mound, but also something moving through the trees to his east. He moved into cover and watched the treeline, his pistol up.

Movement, in the bushes. Footsteps. He tensed up and waited for whoever it was to break the trees. Celia came striding out of the cover, carrying a hunting rifle. She stopped to look over the lake bed, then jumped down from a rock and walked slowly across, heading northwest.

Wade watched her leave. She hadn't even seen him there. He looked back the way she came, and stood. He could investigate it later. He was still on contact point, so he had to get the ants out of the way.

After an hour, he'd cleared the ants out of the first mound, and decided to come up for fresh air. It was stale and musty and terribly warm in the ant mound, and his filter system was blinking red lights at him. "EXPUNGE" was the warning it kept flashing. He sat down near some rocks on the west side of the lake bed and took off his helmet.

The girl came back after a few minutes, her footsteps clear in his ears. He refitted his helmet and pulled up his pistol. Just _what_ was she doing? She walked back across the lake bed and into the same treeline she'd exited from.

Wade shrugged to himself. She had followed them, before. And Mayer was irritated that the ghoul and the girl were both missing from Stockton. Maybe he'd shut up about it, if Wade could find her, and maybe Wade could get on Mayer's good side.

He followed her through the trees, carefully. She walked about one hundred feet and then stopped, and climbed up into an ancient-looking tree. She slipped from tree to tree until she reached a rock ledge, and disappeared over it. Wade searched around the base of the rock wall for a moment, and found a small path up onto the facing. He moved slowly up to the ledge she had gone onto.

It lead deeper into the rocks, and he moved through it cautiously. There was a layer of dirt on the rock floor with bushes seeming to grow along the path, forcing him to take a zig-zag route through them. It looked almost natural, but he kicked up some of the dirt and realized it had been deliberately placed.

At the end of the passage, he came across a woven blind of tree branches. It let enough light through that he could see a small shack and a water source. He could hear a distant thudding, dull banging on metal. He looked at the blind for a moment, then pushed it gently.

It gave enough for him to see that it had been latched on the other side. He held it open for a moment, then let it drop, and turned around.

_Well, that is certainly interesting,_ he thought. He went back through the trees to the dry lake bed, and tackled the second ant mound.

* * *

From the roof, Celia stepped over to the top of the rock wall surrounding Lionel's home and moved onto the rocks directly over the entry ledge. She laid herself flat on her stomach and pulled up her rifle. Something had bumped the blind, and it wasn't the wind.

Black metal moving through the trees. She squinted into the scope. One of the soldiers. _Not him, not him, not him!_ He broke the trees and she saw his laser pistol. Probably Wade, alone on the dry lake bed. She sighed in relief.

But... _Crap,_ she thought. She'd have to go down there and make sure he wasn't reporting on her location. If Mayer found out where she or Lionel was... She gritted her teeth, and slung the rifle onto her back, grabbing a nearby tree. Thank goodness for his careful pruning of the plants and trees around the shack.

Celia wound her way through the trees and watched him march straight down into the ant mounds. _No wonder,_ she thought, _if he's exterminating the ants, then he probably saw me come back from my hunt._

She climbed into another tree and watched the ant mounds. Over the wind she could hear the fizzing of his laser pistol, and the weird popping sound the ants made. Then nothing, for a long time. She checked her Pip-Boy, and timed it.

For a while, she amused herself by prying bark from the tree, and counting the small creatures that scuttled through the brush. She watched the sap ooze from the tree and thought it funny that trees were born, grew, bled, and died, just like people. But they did everything very slowly. ...Like ghouls.

After the Pip-Boy told her it had been an hour, she climbed down from the tree and moved to the mound entrance, peering down into it. She couldn't hear or see anything. Maybe he'd died? She doubted it. Ants were tough if you had little armor, but he was wrapped in a metal suit powered with nuclear fission.

She touched the edge of the mound with a hand and leaned forward. Still nothing. She agonized for a moment. If she went down to check on him―_no! Bad Celia!_ she told herself. _No more adventures._

_But,_ she thought, _is it really an adventure to make sure the ants are dead?_

_Okay,_ she told herself. _This is my last adventure. I swear._


	28. The Nightmare

Wade thought that _this_ ant mound stunk more than the other. He took care of the ants, but found a metal door set into the muck of the tunnels. This led to an airlock, and a console at the back of the room.

He checked it out, and was impressed. Someone code-named 'adamZad' had gone through the system and written a program in it, designed to utilize an existing signal to broadcast short-wave infrasonic pulses. It repeated once every three weeks, deterring the ants from using the tunnels as a home. The program was full of errors and Wade set about fixing it with his limited knowledge.

He logged the information in his Pip-Boy, and looked through the rest of the data entries on the console. This Adam fellow had been prolific in his journals, filling the scant memory of the console with a litany of information. Wade skimmed some of them briefly.

While he was engrossed, he didn't notice his surroundings. It wasn't until he heard the familiar clicking of a prod from behind him, that he realized he wasn't alone. He pulled out his pistol and turned.

The girl, of course. She was bound to meddle with Sigma, again. She had taken his prod from his belt and had turned it on.

"Give that back," Wade said, aiming his pistol at her head.

She glanced up at him, then asked, "How does it work?" She touched the contacts with her fingers.

Wade sighed and removed the prod from her, disarming her of the rifle, while she was flailing on the floor. "What the hell do you want?" he asked.

"That's my rifle," she said, sticking her finger in her mouth.

Wade dropped the rifle to the floor, placing his boot on top of it. "And?"

"Don't!" she said. "Jeez! You've been in here for over an hour. I came to see what was up."

Wade lowered his pistol. "Get out."

"Can't. You've got my weapon." She crossed her arms over her chest.

He kicked the rifle over to her. "Let's go."

Celia grabbed up the rifle and slowly proceeded to leave the ant mound. Wade was tempted to prod her when it took them ten minutes to get to the surface.

"Get on back to your hideout," he said.

She stopped mid-stride and turned to face him. "Please," she said. "Don't tell Mayer where I am."

"Why shouldn't I?" he asked.

She rubbed her arm and stared at his pistol. "I'm not a bad person," she said. "I don't know why he treated me like that."

"I'm not, either," he said.

"But you do bad things. Say bad words to people." She looked up at his helmet.

Wade holstered his pistol and removed his helmet, and held it under one elbow. He held out a hand to her. "Hello," he said. "My name's Delbert Wade."

She snorted a little chuckle. "What are you doing?"

"Introducing myself," he said. "That is _not_ something that bad people do."

She scoffed. "Why would you?"

"To prove to you that I'm not a bad person," he said, simply.

"You're not very bright, are you?" she asked, squinting her eyes at him.

"If you're going to insult me," he said, reaching back for his pistol.

"You don't like when Mayer makes fun of you, either," she said, quietly.

He paused. "No, I don't. I'm the rookie, you know."

She searched his face with her big brown eyes and he felt himself flush. "Why are you a soldier?" she asked, finally.

"There are things that are worse than living in your Vault," he said. "I read your entries. It sounds terrible."

"Sounded," she corrected, absently. "Doesn't exist anymore."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I won't tell Mayer where you are."

Celia sighed and ran a hand up her forehead into her hair, pushing back her curls. She was rather pretty, he thought. "I'm not asking for trust," he added.

"I won't give it," she said. "I hate you all." Her face suddenly screwed up into a grimace.

"You can hate Sigma all you want," he said. "But you'll never be able to fight us. I can't tell you what is going to happen to your town, but I will warn you." He put his helmet back onto his armor and latched it. "You should run away, Celia. And do not come back."

She frowned. Wade pulled his pistol and walked away, back to Mayer and the radio tower.

* * *

It seemed like forever, before he was able to climb his way out of the dark haze. Ash was falling, mingling with the rain, as black as the deepest cave. It burned away his skin, burned away his muscles, burned away his bones. He took a breath in the nothingness of the black world, and the air was so hot that fire filled the place where his lungs used to be. He screamed, and a mushroom cloud erupted from his mouth, a gaping hole of atomic fire in the blasted-open earth.

The sky blossomed into a nova of light, blinding him. When he could see again skeletons were rising from the ground, their skulls locked into horror grins. They marched, across the darkened earth, into the bay. He followed, until the mud squeezed between his toes and the water rose to his ankles. A siren wailed. The skeletons marched onward.

He stopped. The water lapped at his feet. He looked back at the world he was about to leave, and started in surprise.

Lilian walked back toward the land, away from the water, away from him. He called out, tried to run after her. He slipped in the slick mud, fell to his knees. He howled in frustration, but the wind only ripped the words out of his mouth and carried them away.

The wind sped up around him, blowing dust and rocks into his face. The bay began to bubble, burning white-hot in the forever night, and fire leapt up his legs. A hand reached out, and pulled him from the fire-water, leading him to the dry earth. He stood, and was hardened against the fallout.

He looked to see who the hand belonged to, but the light was too bright around the person, and he raised a hand to shield his eyes―

Lionel woke with a start, and immediately checked to make sure he was real.

Never, _never_ again. His shoulder might hurt like a chainsaw was butting against it, his mouth felt like a wad of cotton was in it, and his bladder was about to explode, but goddammit―that _fucking_ dream!

He went right for the door but didn't make it to the tiny outhouse away from the shack in time. He leaned against the shack wall and relieved himself. A wave of pain seesawed across his chest muscles and into his shoulder.

How did he get home? He didn't remember much after injecting the med-x. That had been a bad idea, and he'd known it. He put a hand to his shoulder and grimaced.

Lionel changed his clothing, cursing freely. Every day was going to be like that, he thought. _Every single goddamn day._ He stared at his revolver. He'd have to learn to shoot right-handed.

Lionel went outside and examined the blind that someone had put up over the entryway. That was new. Looked like it had taken a while. How long had he been sleeping? He looked up at the sky.

He remembered Lilian, walking away from him, in the dream. He shuddered. Hopefully she was still in Grayling. He touched his arm stub. She wouldn't be happy with him.

He ate a little and sat outside, staring at the rock wall surrounding the shack. A noise from the top of the rocks caught his attention, and then footsteps on the shack roof. Celia poked her head out over the edge of the roof. "Lionel!" she almost yelled.

"Where's Lilian?" he asked, as she careened off the roof, landing with a tumble into the berry bushes. Why was she so damn excitable?

"At Jen's, I hope," she said, and stood up. "I'm glad you woke up."

Me too, he thought. "I'm going to Grayling," he said, and went to the door to the shack.

"No!" she yelled. She flushed deep red. "Uhh... No. You're under house arrest."

Lionel stared at her for a moment. She avoided eye contact. "You wanna run that by me, again?" he asked.

"You can't leave the shack," she said. "Mayer―"

He opened the door with a jerk and went inside._ What a load._ He knew what she meant. He snorted. The day he was afraid to set foot in the wasteland was the day he would die.

_Getting soft,_ he told himself. _Too many flighty women around me._

A vague memory floated to the top of his mind. Pre-War, some fine blonde woman on a ship, hair flying in the breeze. He didn't remember her name, just that body. Lionel laughed at himself, stupidly. _You weren't made to be a bachelor,_ he told himself.

Celia entered the shack, looking like a dog with her tail between her legs. She sat at the table and put her chin on her arms, crossed in front of her. He ignored her, pulled out Lilian's sack of goods from under the bed.

Upending it onto the bed, he went through her things. Her comics, various small interesting rocks, a few pieces of metal she'd bent together. He put most of it back. Celia did not offer to help him. She sat at the table making walking motions with her fingers and mouthed words to herself.

Lionel picked up the teddy bear in the bag. Lilian wanted to give it to Virginia. He felt the softness through a patch of skin on his index finger, and looked at Celia. Something from a disused part of his mind stirred.

"What's the matter with you, kid?" he asked, shoving the bear back into the bag.

She said, "Hmm." He moved to the table, and put his fingers down like she had hers. He was too stiff to move them like she was, but managed a short "walk".

"I'm supposed to be an adult," she said, "but I'm not." She walked her hand over to his, and waved at him with her thumb.

"You got your whole life ahead of you," he said. He tried to wiggle his thumb like hers, but it wouldn't work. He picked his hand up from the table and looked down at the top of her messy hair.

She removed her hands and laid her head flat onto the table surface. "Maybe."

Lionel sat down. "What the hell is this shit?"

"I don't know," she muffled. "Being stupid."

"Was it that shit-heel in the clinic?" he asked. "He threatened you?"

She shrugged. "I don't get _that_ kind of threat, anyway. I'm stupid."

Lionel fought the urge to laugh. She was ridiculous. Sounded like she would rather be willfully stupid than deal with growing up. He changed the subject. "You wanna hear a story?"

"...I guess."

He cleared his throat. "Back in the day when I was a teenager," he rumbled, "I was the stupidest, _scrawniest_ little bastard on my street. Ran with a gang of kids who weren't much smarter than me, but were stronger. I had to impress them, or get my ass kicked all the time."

She turned her head and stared at his hand, resting on the table.

"I stole my old man's car, when I was fourteen. Me and the gang went around the street, lobbing rocks at windows and mailboxes." He chuckled. "My old man, he didn't say a word. He watched me drive that thing back to the driveway, then beat the ever-loving _shit_ out of me."

Celia was watching his face now.

"I couldn't walk for a week," he rasped. "It took me _years_ to figure out how not to get caught. He musta beat me about once a day, starting then."

"What was driving a car like?" she asked, looking up at him.

Lionel looked out over his memory, thinking about the wind forced against his face, the feel of the engine under the hood, the steering wheel in his hands. "Fun," he replied. "Not like being out on the water, though."

"On a barge?" she asked.

"No, you want a motorboat for good speed," he said, offhand. He paused, then realized what she'd said. "Why a barge?" he asked, looking down at her.

Celia flushed. "Lilian mentioned the ones at Toskey."

Lionel pressed his mouth together. _Fuck._ That was where she must have gone, for those three months. He looked away from Celia and swallowed his words. There was nowhere else to ride the barge at Toskey to but St. James, on the island.

He ground his teeth together at the thought. Celia sat up and watched him. "Look, kid, my point is, life might suck right now, but there's always tomorrow," he growled, and stood up, roughly. "You learn a lot of lessons, real quick. I've learned so many, I tend to forget them."

"Did you forget what it felt like, when you changed?" she asked, quietly.

Lionel snapped his head to look at her, but she'd gotten up and was moving away.

"No, kid, I haven't forgotten that."


	29. Demons and Angels

Logan Mayer was in a good mood. More than he'd had before, when that impertinent little bitch had given him a reason to put her in her place. It was simply a wonderful mood.

Bradley and Angus had gone off to put in their reports, and the rookie was out running contact point, so Mayer had removed his helmet and strutted through Stockton, watching the ladies swoon. He never got tired of that.

The only way this day could get better would be if he found that fucking demon and made his little girl swoon, too. He knew he'd been close, before. It didn't take much to impress women. And the words he'd spoken to her, oh, she would not forget that, anytime soon.

Mayer made his way to the mess hall, his helmet under his arm. He didn't understand why Bradley had let the ghoul go, when it was protocol to gather up all ghouls. Sigma rounded them up on a regular basis, driving them back to Detroit, whether or not they'd turned feral. The High Ferrule said every ghoul was important, to the benefit of Man.

Bradley hadn't explained his actions, as of yet. Mayer didn't want to report him to Paramount for not following orders; he enjoyed being a member of Sigma. If he screwed up his deployment with HARD, he wouldn't get to shoot people. He really wanted to shoot that fucking ghoul.

It got Mayer's back up to know that this one-armed defiled asshole was running around out in the wastes with that girl, right now. Did she _ever_ need lessons on behavior! Interfering with Sigma's work, being impudent at the clinic, assaulting Wade at On-the-Bay, threatening Angus with the little striker she'd found. What the hell did she even have it for, anyway?

He remembered his father telling him that the path to the heart of God was through that of a heathen. Those who fought the most, were worth the most effort. He understood, now.

He imagined, if he were to return to Detroit and successfully transform this heathen child into a functioning member of the church, he could guarantee his induction to a soft position. Maybe Deacon. It would bring even more respect to him for his family, especially now that his father had recently become exalted. Maybe he'd even work his way up and take Cardinal Burgess' job, one day.

His mouth curved into a smile, as he sat down in the mess hall. Others were staring, but he ignored them, watching Jack Calhoun walk into the room. Calhoun swept the room with his eyes, and stopped on Mayer.

After a moment of consideration, he moved to join the soldier. "Almost didn't recognize you," he said. "You're awful tall, though."

Mayer tilted his head. "It throws people off, sometimes."

Calhoun started talking and something involving radio waves and broadcast equipment. "Wade is the computer expert," Mayer said, bored.

"I'm sorry," Calhoun said. "We're a bit lacking in entertainment. What do you have in Detroit, for fun?" he asked.

Mayer's smile widened. "It's usually limited to doing what comes naturally."

Calhoun laughed, a patient little chuckle. "We haven't got enough women for that," he said.

"If you let them run around with the defiled, it's no wonder."

Calhoun was silent for a moment. "Why is it that you hate ghouls, so much?" he asked.

Mayer leaned forward. "I don't _hate_ him," he said.

"You beat the man so badly he lost an arm," the black man stated.

"That is not a man!" Mayer said, nearly shouting. The others were staring at him again. He lowered his voice. "That is a _demon,_ pretending to be an angel."

Calhoun looked stunned. _As well he should be,_ Mayer thought. Mayer stood to his full height of six-foot-five and looked down on him. "You're letting that beast take the girl as his disciple. I can promise you this, when Sigma is done with this place, there will be a cleansing."

He walked away from the table, leaving the man to sit there, thoughtfully.

* * *

Feeling a bit more proud of herself, Celia hunted for food. She didn't know what to hunt―"Food" was all that Lionel had told her. But she was happy enough to make herself useful, and he'd promised to stay at the shack. She didn't know if he would, really.

She'd walked out into the wastes as far as she dared to, and looked for something shoot. She was remembering the story Lionel had told her, back at the shack. She knew she'd get a Pre-War story out of him, eventually. Not that it made much sense.

For the rest of the day she shot, and strung up a brace of, small creatures on the wasteland floor. Lionel had joked once that as long as you didn't know you were eating them, it really wasn't so bad. She tried not to think about it.

As she was making her way back to the shack, she literally ran across Angus. Literally, because he was hidden under a blanket and lying in some bushes she'd taken a shortcut through. The brace went flying and she tumbled headfirst into the dirt over his head. Before she realized what had even happened, he had risen from the ground. "You little _shit!"_

"What the heck, man!" she said, retrieving her game.

Angus grabbed her with his thickly gloved hands and kicked her in the shin again. "You must be the worst spy of all time," he growled. He started marching her back to Stockton.

"Let me go!" she said, fighting.

"Nope," he said. "You're just gonna have to come with me."

He practically dragged her to the town, muttering curses and stomping his feet. She had to take three steps for every two he made, even though he was the same height as she was.

After an exhausting trip over rocks and bushes that Angus barreled through, or over, they came to Stockton. He pulled her with one hand to the small office that comprised Calhoun's living quarters, and tossed her into the room. "Sit tight," he said, and shut the door.

She pulled her knife, and could hear him tromping away. She opened the door a peek, and noticed Calhoun was in his office, reading a book. She hesitated for a moment, then dashed across the hallway into Calhoun's office, shutting the door behind her.

"Hello," Calhoun said, looking over his book at her.

She moved to the desk, went behind it and sat down. "You gotta save me, Jack," she said.

He blinked at her. "What from?"

"Angus." She squeezed her legs into her chest and made herself as small as she could. "I was hunting and ran into him. He thinks I'm a spy."

"That's just ridiculous," Calhoun said. "You're not―" he stopped himself. The door to the office opened, and he put down his book. "Mr. Angus," he said. "How may I help you?"

"That girl," he growled.

"There are several girls here in town. I'm afraid I can't help you unless you tell me which one."

"Let me in," Mayer said. "You know which one, Calhoun. Don't spoil our pacific intentions over some silly kid."

"Celia might be silly, but she's certainly not a kid," Calhoun said. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to lodge a complain with your commanding officer about the behavior you've exhibited lately, particularly towards Celia. My citizens do not warrant such unnecessary behavior, Mr. Mayer."

The soldiers were silent for a moment. "Very well," Mayer said, and Celia heard them leave.

After the door closed, Calhoun turned to her. "I think you should stay with Lionel, and not leave," he said.

"Gotta eat," she said.

"No, I don't like this," he said, rubbing his face. "They gave up too easily. Go back and don't come home until someone you can trust says it's okay."

She made a burbling laugh. "That's a _very_ short list."

Calhoun fixed her with a look, and took her elbow, leading her up. "Be safe, Celia," he said, escorting her from the town. "Try to stay in one place."

She thought about it the whole way back to Lionel's shack, and by the time she got there, her knuckles were white and numb from clenching her fist.


	30. The Sum of Fifty Years

Three shadows departed from Grayling that night. One was quite loud, but was effectively shut up with a hard kiss.

Celia turned away from the two ghouls, embarrassed. Lionel released Lilian, and explained to her that there was no other option. The time for getting was good, so they'd better get and go. Lilian was quiet, stunned, put her hand to the place her lips had been, and looked away.

Of course, she was angry. First her Celia went missing, and then Lionel had, even though she was the one who'd asked him to go. He didn't come back for ages, and when he did, his arm was gone. How would they survive in the wastes, now? She'd seen him fall from a rock wall, get up and walk away. He'd taken a baseball bat to the face without blinking, once. But losing an arm? That was dramatically different.

The poor girl. Something was going on with her, Lilian could tell. She said she was coming along because she was tired of being harassed by the soldier she called Mayer. Lilian knew that fear in her eyes. _Any girl should,_ she thought. Whatever those soldiers were doing, it wasn't right.

Lilian frowned, and wondered what _had_ happened out in the wastes, with the soldiers.

"Don't be sad," Lionel said, spotting her frown. "It's not forever."

The old coot. Treating her like she was fragile, but shaking her up like a soda bottle. Lilian was quite used to his moody inclinations. She'd never let it build up to the point of letting it get under her skin. "I'm not," she said, huffily.

But she was worried. Firstly, about herself, trapped on what would likely be a long journey across the wastes with Lionel. She'd gone away from him, before, because she needed a break. Lionel was... overwhelming, sometimes. And so damn grumpy.

Secondly, she was worried about the kiss; Lionel had not been one for physical intimacy, and she'd never pushed the issue. What was going on that he felt she _finally_ deserved a kiss after ten years of nothing? That, in itself was too suspicious for her to not consider it trouble.

And she wondered about the girl. Celia was moping, acting like a sullen child. She acted like that when she was thinking about her people in the base. Lilian understood Celia felt put upon by the negativity. It hadn't been a stress-free life, she'd led.

Lilian went to her side and smiled at her, then put her raggedy hand through her whole one. But even Celia had no smile for her, tonight. That was worrisome. Celia always had a small smile for her.

"Someone had better explain this to me, once we get wherever we are going," she announced, then shut her mouth and walked in silence.

* * *

Paramount Control rejected the offer that Calhoun had given up, regarding the robots and engineering skills. The town was just too far away to effectively police, or do business with, and Paramount reported that the High Ferrule had no desire to expand out that far. An alternative solution was given, one that would negate any need for the people of Stockton to worry about their stunted growth or their skills going to waste.

Wade really wished he was looking at something other than a D2S order. Detain, Ship, Sort. The people of Stockton were doomed, though given that they had a variety of technical skills, they'd likely be placed in low-priority positions along the radio towers that dominated Detroit's skyline. That is, if they survived the conditioning.

Wade felt the pulse from the infrasonic tower he'd installed wash over him. That was something he was used to, and he ignored it. But a nagging thought in the back of his mind kept unraveling the static hum of the infrasound, and he couldn't make it go away. It was disturbing. The horror of what Sigma had been ordered to do leaked into his mind like oil over a hot engine, bubbling and sticky, burning onto him.

At least they hadn't been ordered to disable the location. Wade was grateful that the base would remain standing.

He wasn't looking forward to the 250-plus mile trip, either. The residents were mostly older folk, twenty-nine people, including one heavily pregnant woman and one small child, no more than a year old. Not all of them would make it to Detroit.

Wade accessed the console in the supply room, and reprogrammed the robots to follow Sigma's orders. He didn't want to do it. It was an order. When he was done, he contacted Bradley and Sigma initiated the D2S order.

Bradley, displaying his usual calm exterior, marched to Calhoun's office and arrested the former Overseer. Calhoun, in his own calm way, did not react at all, merely followed orders while watching them with those shining black eyes of his.

Sigma secured the prisoners, the robots gathered in the courtyard standing by silently. Wade, Angus, and Mayer lined them up along the road.

"I expect you are confused," Bradley said. "That is well. Confusion is a normal reaction to this post-apocalypse we live in. You may feel safer in the knowledge that Paramount has kept lower and middle Michigan safe for fifty years, and will not fail now." He walked down the line, looking at each person.

Bradley gestured to the other members of Sigma. "These men, before you, are the product of a society raised up above the confusion, to become more than mere workers. They are soldiers. The best and most dependable patrol in the wasteland, working to make lives easier. Lives, like yours, and the people of Grayling. Grayling has sworn allegiance. They knew the cost, when they were established.

"You have sworn allegiance, but you do not know the cost. Now, I will show you." Bradley gestured to Wade, who keyed in on his prompt to release another infrasonic wave, more powerful this time.

The group gasped and wailed. Wade felt the sounds on his skin, prickling at his mind. The lingering thoughts about wrongness remained, but dampened.

"You will be returned to Detroit," he said. "Once we arrive you will be sorted and put to work in various fields, provided you survive the trip. This is non-negotiable."

Someone swore, and Bradley pulled his pistol and shot the old security officer through the forehead. "Any more objections?" he asked. "No?" He ran the pistol down the line of people.

_"Why?"_ Jack Calhoun asked.

Bradley moved to the man, put his pistol behind the black man's ear and watched him squirm. "Because," he said, "there are more important things in this world than an individual person."

Someone broke the line and tried to run. Sigma watched him run, and did not shoot. The sentry bot sounded off. "Hostile detected. Commencing neutralization."

The man fell near the gates of Stockton.

After, a demure line of former Vault dwellers marched across the land to the south. They were guarded by four Paramount soldiers and a group of Protectrons, Mister Gutsys, and one lone sentry bot.


	31. Detroit

**PART TWO**

* * *

Four people had died on the trip to Detroit. Wade expected it would be the older folks, even the little girl, but it wasn't. Three people his own age, and a middle-aged woman.

Wade had to guard over the grave diggers, watching them. It was useless to feel any sympathy for them, he knew. Their shaking hands and the crying of the one they called Patricia, it bothered him. He remembered the clinic where his mother had died.

He wanted to look away from the wailing, but Mayer was watching him just as often as he watched the diggers.

They rode the highway down to Arbor, then followed the road into Detroit. Control was at the gates, watching all travelers. Towers loomed in the dark sky, lit up in the gloom, behind the high gates of the city. Wade and Mayer drove the people into the city, while Bradley and Angus led them through the gates. The toddler dropped a toy, and Wade retrieved it. It was burnt, along with the clothes they wore into the city.

Everyone was disinfected. The chemical showers were the cleanest part of the city, as Mayer joked. Sigma was debriefed and released on leave, a reward for their patriotic behavior. Wade returned to his father's home for an afternoon, visiting his many siblings.

He couldn't tell them what Sigma had done. It was against the conditioning, against the rules set by Paramount. He wouldn't have told them, anyway. It brought shame to his mind to admit that he'd had thoughts about letting the people escape. _Treason!_

He'd have to report to Bradley that he was thinking against orders, and report for reconditioning.

Wade sat on the roof of the building where he lived in Detroit, cobbled together with bits of the broken city. He'd not been back for some time, now. Black smoke from the Chryslus plant covered the sky, with only the occasional bit of heavy cloud showing through to prove it was daytime. The massive ruins of the city rose up around him like jutting fingers. He felt small, breathing in the heavy air, moving sluggishly. Heat and an acrid smell wrapped him tightly.

He pushed his hair off his forehead and looked out at the world he'd grown up in. He couldn't imagine growing up in the wastes, having such freedom. He couldn't imagine life in a Vault, either, or any life where he didn't have the oppressive skies overhead to remind him that all safety came with duty.

When Wade joined Sigma for the first time, he'd had nightmares about the open land. Now, he was having nightmares about it again, but this time he was being denied the chance to go back.

The fire barrels burning in the city streets, the people listlessly wandering, soldiers watching their every move. Wade sighed to himself. It felt like he'd been robbed of something, but he couldn't place a finger on it. He stared out at the glittering lights of the Temple of Solomon, lit up like nothing else in this forsaken world, the only building in Detroit that wasn't studded with antenna arrays and radio towers. It was lit up with strings of floodlights, standing tall against the sky like an angel unfolding it's wings.

Tomorrow, he would report to Bradley, and go to the Temple for conditioning.

* * *

"Test him, again," General Mercado ordered, watching the courtyard from the window of his office.

In the yard, Wade waited, helmet under his arm and eyes forward. He hoped he would pass, this time.

"Helmets on!" the drill sergeant ordered. "Arms up!"

Wade latched his helmet onto his armor and raised his pistol. Three other soldiers did the same, but this was their first visit to the courtyard. All total, this would be Wade's third time around.

He didn't understand why he'd not been able to follow the trigger words, why he couldn't do as he was ordered without fail. Maybe being out in the wastes had changed him. He'd never heard of any other Paramount soldiers rejecting the conditioning, though most voluntarily allowed for it to be done repeatedly. The High Ferrule encouraged this, lauded personal praise on those who would willingly submit to the teachings. Some people submitted every available chance, like Mayer, because they wished to join the church.

"Listen!" the drill sergeant called. "In a moment, this courtyard will be filled with targets. This isn't free break! Your orders are to terminate the red, but not the black! _Red!"_

A klaxon sounded and three doors around the yard opened. A mass of people spilled out of each door, herded out into a chain link enclosure spanning from one side of the yard to the other. Wade, along with the three others, held his weapon firm and assessed the targets. Many people were running back and forth, some had sunk to the ground in fear, and even more were coming up to the fence and calling insults at the soldiers. A few red-marked outfits peeked through the throng.

The others fired without hesitation, each shooting once into the crowd. Wade looked through the group of people, closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger. _If anyone is watching over me, please help me,_ he thought.

The people were rounded up and pushed back through the doors. Three red outfits, one black. Wade hung his head.

He was stripped of his armor and ordered into civilian dress, then taken to see General Mercado. The military complex headquarters for Paramount was a simple building, but this belied the Pre-War glory of the inside. Faded curtains against the walls, framed portraits with faces no longer recognizable, even a few chipped marble busts on pedestals, lined the hallway as Wade was seen into Mercado's office by his grim-faced secretary.

The atmosphere in the room was suffocating. Wade waited for so long, he half expected there to be a hidden sniper somewhere, waiting for the moment to take him out. His eyes darted around the room, and he took a step forward tentatively.

"So, it _is_ true," a voice came. Wade jerked to his left to see Mercado standing in a doorway he hadn't noticed, calmly drinking a cup of coffee. Mercado was ruddy, with square-cut steel-colored hair and cool gray eyes. Wade imagined the man had been born in the factories of Detroit, that they had simply pressed him out of the machines.

Wade flushed. The general moved to his desk, setting down the coffee cup, but not sitting himself. He shuffled some papers and picked a thick sheaf up, looking up at Wade. "Well!" the general said, looking through the paperwork and leaning on the desk. "Wade, you are the first Paramount soldier to have ever rejected conditioning, twice."

"Sir, I-"

"Exactly!" the general said, sweeping his coffee cup off the desk in his excited movement. "No talking! No trying to explain! _Silence!"_ Wade was silent. "Good!" the general said. "You can at least obey some simple orders without issue."

Wade tried not to let himself feel the fear beating in his heart. He was going to die. He knew it. He would be executed for treason.

"Now, your case makes it hard for me," the general said, putting the paperwork aside and crunching ceramic under his feet as he moved away from the desk. He put his hands on his hips. "You weren't a very good soldier, were you, Wade?"

He opened, then closed his mouth.

"Bradley's reports show a dramatic decline in performance in combat, though you did start off strong. Your other skills have only improved. Particularly of interest was your report on the infrasonic emitter, which I will come back to. It is recommended by Bradley that you be re-assigned to Control, preferably in your old technician position." He chuckled to himself. "And your team did not have a high opinion of you in general, did they, monster bait?"

Wade felt his face get hotter. He knew what he would say about Mayer and Angus, respectively.

"Given that you are considered non-viable as a soldier, it is my duty to herewith affirm that Paramount has no need for your services." The general smiled amicably at Wade. "I might have applied you to an engineering spot, but unfortunately, with your rejection of conditioning..." He held out a hand, palm up. "Luckily for you, I was given priority orders this morning. My decision is to follow the High Ferrule's recommendation, and order you to visit the Temple, for guidance. Cardinal Burgess will admit you."

Wade's heart sank into his chest.

"Do you have anything, at all, to say? Something that isn't an excuse?"

"No, sir," Wade said, and threw up the three-finger salute.

"That's _quite_ enough of that, Mr. Wade. Report to the Temple, immediately." The general saw him to the door.


	32. The High Ferrule

His feet trod heavily to the enormous building, under the never-sunny sky. The floodlights on the Temple illuminated him, outlining him in shadow, broadcasting his sins. Wade fully understood; he was to be judged, and if he was unworthy, he would die. And he was unworthy. He could feel the rats chewing on his feet, and picked up his pace.

An arched room, and darkened interior, greeted him. A hushed chant in the rooms beyond where he was, echoed through the lobby. He heard growling, and saw the Paramount soldiers with the Temple dogs on chains, lining the entrance to the Concourse. These guards stopped him, and he was allowed to present himself to the Cardinal.

Cardinal Burgess didn't have a high opinion of Wade, and as Wade was beginning to understand, seemed a little frightened of the prospect of an ex-Paramount soldier without conditioning.

"Well," the little man said, adjusting his glasses. "You've garnered a personal visit with the High Ferrule himself."

"Sir?" Wade swallowed hard.

"Come along, ingrate. We'll find you something more appropriate to wear. You must look presentable!"

So Wade was ushered into a small room off of the Concourse, to wait for his appointment. His heart pounded in his chest.

It was funny, he thought, watching the people scurry about the Temple rooms, that no one truly knows the High Ferrule except the older generation of soldiers, and those in the Cabinet. Wade himself had never seen the man, and didn't know what to expect.

He was lead onto the Concourse. He walked forward into an enormous room, lit up like the outside of the Temple, blindingly hot. Along the crumbling walls, children who had been presented to the church were chanting, repeatedly. It was only noise to Wade. A bower of curtains stood encircling a platform in the center of the room, the lights shining onto the faded fabric. Along the curtains were the Devoted, who stood shoulder to shoulder, protecting the High Ferrule with their lives. Their gray robes swept the floor as they kept a slow beat to the chanting.

And, abruptly, he was inside the bower. Forced to his knees and made to supplicate, Wade's terror only grew.

"This is he?" a crackling voice came from in front of him. Wade was suddenly reminded of fire, burning crisply on the wasteland floor. He stared at his hands, in front of him, touching the dry wood of the bower floor.

"Yes, High Ferrule," Burgess said.

"Leave him."

Burgess hastened to make his departure through the curtains. Wade could feel tears welling up in his eyes, and forced himself to stop, glancing up to get his first impression of the High Ferrule. He stared, unabashedly.

_A ghoul!_ A ghoul, like all of the others he'd rounded up with Sigma, and brought to the Temple. He was as thin as paper, skin browned by the radioactivity of the wastes, wearing a remarkably clean white robe. He sat on a throne made of glass pieces soldered together, haphazardly. At his feet, chained to the floor, sat a small girl in robes, no more than four or five years old. His eyes, whitened by cataracts to the point of occlusion, were staring at him with a bored look.

"High Ferrule," he bowed again, touching his head to the wooden floor. His voice shook in fear.

"Rise, boy," the High Ferrule motioned him, with one hand. "I expect you think you are going to die."

Putting on a brave face, Wade nodded. "Everyone dies, High Ferrule," he said, in a small voice.

"True."

Wade felt the eyes sweep over him. A moment passed, tension mounting. Wade could not keep his eyes off the child at the High Ferrule's feet, her bright green eyes looking at him with fear and apprehension. Was she scared of the High Ferrule? Or was it he? He couldn't tell.

"Wade, was it?" a tumbling crackle came.

"Yes, High Ferrule."

A heavy breath. "Call me sir."

"Yes, sir."

Then the High Ferrule laughed, a weird sound in the bower, flying out into the openness of the Concourse, and the girl began to laugh too. Wade was unnerved, stood, and backed away.

"Oh? Good!" The girl stopped laughing with the High Ferrule, and he sat forward in the glass throne with a rustle.

"Sir?" Wade asked, frightened.

"It is true. Your conditioning won't hold." A crooked smile came over the High Ferrule's face, and he put his chin in his hand, leaning onto his elbow.

"I guess so, sir."

"It's scary, isn't it?" A hand languidly waved in the air.

"I'm sorry, sir?" Wade asked.

"Thinking for yourself, boy!" The hand became a fist and slammed down onto the glass, cracking it.

"I don't know what to think."

"But you _do_ think," the High Ferrule said.

Wade nodded. "I thought that Detroit was not a place where I wanted to stay," he admitted.

"Most excellent," the High Ferrule smiled. "I have an errand for you to run."

"Sir?" Wade raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"I will explain. Are you comfortable?"

"One mustn't rest on one's behind, in the wastes, sir."

The High Ferrule laughed, and his creepy echo laughed along. He patted her head, and pushed himself upwards. With short, shuffling steps, he moved to a cabinet on the right side of the bower, and withdrew something. He moved back to Wade.

"Sir, I would have retrieved that for you," Wade said.

"Don't bother with that, boy. Look."

Wade looked. A piece of metal, shaped like an L-beam, lay on a faded cloth inside of a small metal box. It was about the size of his palm, and generated a soft hum when the High Ferrule picked it up.

"This, boy, is far more important than any single one of Paramount's soldiers." He held the short end by the last three fingers on his hand, in an upside-down way. His index finger and thumb went straight out. Wade could see it looked like a cross.

"What is it, sir?" he asked.

"On its own, this piece is a simple infrasonic thought dampener." The High Ferrule placed it back into the box.

"Like the infrasonic emitter program I found in the ant mounds?" Wade wondered.

"Exactly like that. Which is why I found your skill as a programmer interesting." The High Ferrule put the box away and slowly moved back onto his throne.

"You mean... How I cleaned up the code?" Wade blinked. "Sir, I am not a technician. I may have learned a small amount of programming, but only enough to repair my EK3 display when it needs."

The High Ferrule nodded, absently. "The simple nature of the code allowed me to determine some flaws in the EXILE-8 program. It helped me to understand where I had gone wrong with the infrasonic dampener." He gestured to the cabinet.

Wade, pulling together all the manners that he possessed, said, "I am happy that you found use my skills, no matter how ineffective they are, sir."

"Stop _sniveling,"_ the High Ferrule snapped. "I have a problem. The other part of the dampener is missing. In order to utilize the EXILE-8 conditioning program, I need it. You do know that the dampener makes people tractable, yes?"

Wade nodded.

"With the proper conditioning program, and using the dampener, I can produce highly effective soldiers," the High Ferrule said. "Paramount can dominate an area, without much effort."

Wade started to think that he _was_ the bad guy, like Celia had said.

"But, with the second dampener, the EXILE-8 conditioning program can turn any person into an unlimited resource. All subconscious knowledge, all physical skills, any trivial ability could be accessed with a simple command. This creates a superlative soldier, completely willing and ready to serve."

"You're talking about possession?" Wade asked. "Using someone like a hand puppet?"

"On the nose, boy. I want that second dampener. The prototype ISD was designed with a flawed emitter. I want the ISD that wasn't." A happy look came over the High Ferrule's face. "Imagine, Wade. How well could we protect Michigan with soldiers that do no need to feel pain, because they are told _not_ to? Or who can, on a moment's notice, become a field medic, a technician, a programmer? A general who would dig a latrine without complaining, a private willing to walk through an irradiated waste?"

"Is the safety of the people so important, that we could disregard all freedoms?" Wade felt himself emboldened by such free talk.

"When the Resource Wars began, we fought against those who would have forced us into the same chains," the High Ferrule said. "We fought because we had to, and because their ideals were not similar to American interests. Their beliefs were good, but not in practice. We were blinded by our own patriotic enthusiasm, considering that our own ways were best." The High Ferrule laughed, and his echo started up. "And look where _that_ got us."

"But many people in the wastes are living long, full, productive lives," Wade said. "In freedom. Why change that?" He felt horror creeping into his mind. What good could mind control do?

"You're boring me, boy. For some to remain free, others must do their duty." The High Ferrule closed his fist and tapped the arm of his throne. "That is a basic tenet of American society." He made a noise and curled his fingers through the little girl's hair. "Sometimes our duty is unpleasant. I want that ISD, Wade. You will find it and bring it to me. In return, I will grant you a boon."

"What is that, sir?" Wade asked.

"I will give you what I suspect you've wanted since you returned from this Stockton place." The High Ferrule leaned forward and put his hand in his chin again.

_"Your freedom."_


	33. Departure

They headed north, on 75. Celia left everything behind, including her Pip-Boy, just in case. The trip was eventful, and she winced every time Lionel had to resort to using his pistol as a club, after running out of bullets. She did her best to take down the ants and bloatflies they'd run across, with her rifle. They didn't meet any other people or ghouls on the trip.

For that, she was grateful, because she still remembered her own reluctance to shoot Wade. Even though she knew she ought to have done it then, she'd never shot a person before. It wasn't something she wanted to do. Lionel didn't bring it up.

He didn't complain about his arm, either, but let Celia minister it, when they had to stop for the night just off the highway. Lilian watched her explain how to wrap it, and asked a few questions, but removed herself from the conversation after the wound started oozing. Celia didn't say anything, neither did Lionel. He only grimaced and let her wrap bandages around his chest.

Celia didn't think anything about it. She wanted to help, and her care of his arm stub was the only thing she felt confident enough to do beyond shooting the occasional creature.

Every time they camped, she would curl herself up under a tree and pull a bit of brush over herself. Lilian slept near to her, and Lionel watched over them. _He must not be sleeping much,_ she thought, _that's bad._ If he didn't let her help with that―

She sighed. Everyone was acting strained. She tried not to let hers show. Lilian started treating her a little less gently, and more adult. Lionel didn't seem to care, just kept his mouth shut and marched on.

It was when they got off the highway, around noon on the second day, that the tempers started to flare. Lilian started it with a question about where they were going.

"St. James," he said, without looking at her.

Lilian startled and Celia watched them, interested. "Why in the world would we go there?"

"No soldiers," he stated.

"No, but how long do you think _she'll_ last there?" Lilian asked, pointing at Celia. "The place is chock full of ghouls, and not the kind that would be pleasant company."

"I suppose you would know all about that, then," he muttered.

Lilian stopped in her tracks. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Lionel didn't respond. Celia remembered his reaction, before. He hadn't looked very happy at all to hear what she'd asked. She felt a sudden panic. "I didn't mean to," she mumbled, to Lilian. "I asked about the barges."

Lilian's face was one of shock, then anger. "Oh, you _stupid_ girl!" she started, before Lionel stuck his arm out to her and put himself in between the two women.

"I don't care," he said, "what has happened, but you don't get to blame the kid."

"What the hell is this?" Lilian asked, putting her hands on her hips. "What's happened?"

"What's happened?" he growled. "I lost my fucking _arm!"_

Lilian shut her mouth and glared at him. "And somewhere along the line, had a discussion about me?"

"No," Celia said, solemnly. "Lionel was telling me about cars, and motorboats."

"Oh, my God," Lilian said, rolling her eyes. "And you couldn't keep your mouth shut? I told you that was―"

"A secret?" Lionel asked. "That you didn't want me to know." He put his hand out, on Lilian's shoulder.

_"Lionel―"_

He said something under his breath to her, and Celia was glad she didn't hear it. Lilian's face screwed up and she began making crying noises. "I'm _sorry,"_ she moaned. "For all it's worth!" She turned away and covered her face.

"Keep it up," Lionel grumbled. "I don't think the act is very impressive, anymore." He started walking again. Celia followed, her cheeks on fire. She was sorry she'd even asked him anything, now.

Lilian caught up after a moment and sunk her hand into his remaining arm. "You won't last a day up there, alone!" she hissed. She glared at Celia. "Not with _her."_

"The soldiers won't follow us there," Lionel said, simply. "They don't know about it, or they would have done something about the place, already."

"You know what happens to smoothskins in ghoul cities!" Lilian said.

Celia stopped and crouched down, put her hands over her ears and closed her eyes. She didn't want to hear them fighting. They'd never fought in front of her, not since the argument when Lilian had returned the last time. Lilian hadn't realized she had an audience, that time.

The ghouls kept walking for a little while, but eventually Lionel came back and crouched down in front of Celia. "Kid," he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. "You gotta keep up."

"I don't want to go anymore," she said. "Leave me here. I'll sleep in a tree, when I'm tired. I know how to hunt."

He sighed, and she opened her eyes carefully. "No," he said, "not out here. There's more dangers north of Grayling than you've known, and we're too close to the lake to stop." He looked tired, and his face was more gentle than she'd ever seen it before.

She pushed his arm off her shoulder, and scooted back. "I don't want you two fighting. If I caused it―"

He laughed meanly, and stood up. Lilian was standing further away, glaring at them both. "Learn to ignore it."

Celia sputtered. Every word that she heard only hurt her heart more. It was like she was stuck in between two boulders, grinding themselves together. "Then I'm not going to St. James, at all," she said, flatly. She pushed away all the hurt and locked it up, inside her. _Learn to ignore it,_ she thought. _How stupid. ...I'm good at stupid._

"You'd rather go back and beat your head off the shack wall again?" he asked her, looking at her sharply. "Because I didn't find that amusing."

Celia sniffled and wiped her nose. "No," she said, wobbily. She'd had a panic attack when she tried to explain had had happened with Angus and Mayer, in Calhoun's office.

"Then get up, and let's go."

Obediently, she stood, and walked with him back to Lilian.


	34. Jesse

He wasn't happy. Lilian's reaction to their destination was maddening and Celia's avoidance tactics were depressing. He'd asked Lilian if she wanted to go back to Grayling, alone, and made her cry. It was a low time to be Lionel.

The women didn't talk much while they made their way through the twisting mountain roads toward Petoskey―Toskey, as it was now called, and he remembered the place was a decent town, back in the day. He hadn't been there since before the bombs fell. He tried to remember where he'd been before he came to the rock hideaway outside of Stockton, but his head was foggy. Not enough sleep.

The third night, he passed out on the rocks near the women and woke to find Celia watching the distance, pale and shivering, with her rifle on her knees. He kicked himself for that one. She was scared enough as it was, and it was his fault that they were out here, anyway.

"Shoulda let you take watch," he grumbled, when he'd righted himself.

"It's okay," the girl said, trying to control her shivering. It was colder out here, than in Grayling or Stockton. She wasn't wearing much protection from the elements. Lionel went over the cap situation in his head and realized he didn't have much more than the amount they needed to get on the barge at Toskey.

"How are you holding up?" he asked, awkwardly. It wasn't... in his nature to act like that. He gave it try, though. Had to make up for how terrible he'd been back when Sigma had them captured.

Celia looked at him and he saw her eyes were shining. "We abandoned them," she said.

"Who?" He was confused.

"Calhoun, and the others." She swallowed hard. "Left them to deal with Sigma."

Lionel laughed, rudely. "They've got the robots. I'm sure Calhoun isn't dumb enough to let them steamroll his people."

Celia looked down at her knees. "He's just a politician," she said. "None of them are very good at dealing with real threats."

Lionel moved his right arm in a circle and cracked his neck. He didn't reply. _Neither are you,_ he thought. _But at least you had someone competent to watch out for you._ He sighed.

"Lionel?" she sniffled again. "What is St. James?"

He worked his jaw, angrily. "A ghoul city," he said. "People went there when they still thought there was a cure for it."

"And there isn't," she said.

"No," he snorted. "It's horse-shit." He leaned back and looked down at his hand. "But people are still hopeful, even now."

She didn't say anything in response, just stared out at the wastes again.

"St. James is not a nice place," Lilian said, drowsily. "I don't think you should go there at all, Celia."

Celia looked over her shoulder at the woman, her face neutral. Lionel shook his head. "Doesn't matter," he said.

Lilian sat up. "Lionel?" she said. She looked at him expectantly. He grumbled, looked away. "Well, if you aren't going to tell―"

"Shut up," he said, roughly.

Lilian gritted her teeth and made a frustrated noise. "You want her to get stolen away, or raped?" she asked, loudly.

Celia paled even more and grabbed her rifle, stalking away from the two. "Goddammit, Lilian," he started.

"Why are you acting like this?" she shrieked. "Trying to protect her? What the hell happened with those soldiers?"

"Lilian, calm down," he muttered.

"No, I deserve to know the truth!"

"Like I _didn't?"_ He stood and loomed over the woman. "You jaunted off to St. James every three months for ten _fucking_ years, Lilian!" He clenched his fist.

She glared at him. "I only came to live with you because you were like me!" she started, and got up off the ground. "Because Jennifer thought I needed the help! Doesn't mean I _enjoyed_ your company!"

He was angry, tried to calm himself down. "Didn't seem to bother you too much," he rumbled. "I thought we got along just fine." It hurt a little, thinking Lilian had only stayed with him because they were both ghouls―it wasn't fair to either one of them. If he'd known, he wouldn't have let himself get so invested in her.

"Oh, _right,"_ she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "And you couldn't even bother to try to make me an honest woman?"

Lionel let out his breath and clenched his fist. "I tried to explain that," he rasped. "You didn't bother to listen."

"I listened," she said, and he dreaded the next words. "And I stayed, anyway. God forbid that you ever tried to kiss me, or hold me―"

"Shut _up,_ Lilian!" Lionel growled. He got up and walked away from her. She didn't want to go down that road with him. He didn't want to think about it, either.

* * *

Jesse wasn't allowed at the mill anymore, which was quite sad. He moaned about it, the whole trip on the water, from Toskey to St. James. It wasn't _his_ fault the machinery was old, or that the supervisor (also old) wasn't very fond of him. And he _certainly_ didn't know how those wires had gotten exposed, shocking the poor man.

This was, of course, one of Jesse's covers. Not that any of the people on the barge were aware. Even the helmsman didn't know him. _That was the idea, wasn't it?_

Dressed in rags and carrying a heavy bundle, he aped the unlucky worker as much as he dared. The objective was to goad passengers into talking to him, so he could pry information from them. Jesse had made the run from Gladstone to Toskey a few times already, but he was careful to invent a cover that allowed him to speak freely with others. Last time he'd been an effeminate political refugee, claiming he was a patsy. Too bad he couldn't wear a fake mustache again.

Jesse's eyes were sharp, looking out for the vague description of the objective. He doubted the man had come over the water, but ARC orders were not to be played with, ignored, or otherwise made light. Jesse knew this from personal experience, and he knew he wouldn't be allowed to continue taking orders unless he did the job right.

Jesse liked to think of himself as a mercenary, though he was only a junior member of ARC.

He joked it meant Amos Royce and Company, though Amos liked to call it Alpha Recovery Crew. Various people in the area of Gladstone would hire the three Royce brothers to track down errant loved ones, criminals outside the reach of the law, and the occasional former employee. It wasn't glamorous but it kept food on the table at Ma Royce's house, and if Jesse expected there to be food he had to work. Until the dry season, when Amos went back to shear the Delaines, and Avery hired out as a bodyguard or bouncer. Jesse would be stuck at the farm with Amos unless he could find gainful work elsewhere. He never saw much of the money, since Amos would put it back for him. "Planning for the future," he'd say. "Since you're such a scatterbrain."

Jesse smoked a cigarette, looking out at the water.

The return journey yielded no persons of interest, at least not pertaining to his orders. He craned his neck with interest at a ghoul who had one arm, standing with a woman ghoul who was clearly angry at him. Jesse inched closer and tried to figure out what they were talking about, but it wasn't very hard to hear the woman screeching at the guy.

Something about fruit ripe for the picking. Jesse knew enough to understand that they were arguing about the girl who was chucking wasteland gourmet into the lake, down the railing. She looked more sick than sick, or at least more sick than motion sickness alone. He'd never seen it so bad.

The ghoul stomped off down the barge and Jesse watched him take a spot near the starboard side. He clutched the post like he was about to fall overboard. Jesse raised an eyebrow.

Well, his objective, some sleazeball who'd run out on his bills, wasn't here. That meant it was Amos and Avery's problem. Jesse laughed to himself. He might as well relax and enjoy the ride.

Before the barge docked at St. James, the girl withdrew from the railing and approached the ghoul. Jesse watched her touch his missing arm gently, and the ghoul jerked away, angrily. The girl, who was already pale from throwing up, got paler. She sunk down onto the deck and looked absolutely miserable.

_Maybe that's one for Amos and Avery, too,_ Jesse thought. She looked like she was in trouble.

He would follow the ghoul and see what happened, then ride the barge back to Gladstone tomorrow to tell Amos about it.


	35. Someone to Love

Celia's sickness hadn't gone away when she disembarked, and Lilian and Lionel were fighting again. The girl passed out on the barge landing, leaving Lionel in a bind as to how to remove her, since he really didn't want to touch her. Not after Lilian had implied, in less subtle terms, that Lionel had encouraged the girl a little too much. In the end he just sighed and shot a glare at Lilian, who was glaring right back at him, and hauled the girl over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She didn't weigh very much, but he was uncomfortable anyway.

Lilian directed him to put Celia down on the beach and let her go off into the city. He chafed at that. "I still don't think it's a good idea," he said. "You might not come back."

Lilian spat at him, "When have I not come back to you, you ass?"

Lionel laid Celia out on the beach and stuck a finger in Lilian's face. "Look, woman―" he began.

"Oh, _so_ scary!" she cried, mocking him. "I honestly don't care what you think, Lionel. You can stay here with her, and I'll just go get myself killed."

He clenched his fist. _"Stop,"_ he said.

Lilian looked smug as she skipped off into St. James. Lionel sighed, and turned to Celia. She did not look well at all. _My fucking luck,_ he thought, _she has radiation sickness, and there's no reason for anyone to sell Rad-Away here in St. James._ He sat on his heels in the sand and looked out over the water.

Everything had changed, though. He didn't want to admit it to himself. He'd spent the last day at the shack trying to keep her out of his way so he wouldn't feel it. And the trip up the highway had just made it worse. Lilian's betrayal, running off to St. James for so long, cut him to the bone. She'd used him like a vacation home, somewhere safe to go. He knew how he'd managed to ignore it for so long, he could feel the madness around the edge of his mind. It made him nervous.

And what she'd said about his physical inabilities―He picked up a tin can and crushed it in his hand. There was nothing more to think about that.

The girl had paid him attention like before, taking care of his arm, touching him. That was necessary and he'd hated himself for it. Lilian had seen that, picked up on it, though she hadn't bothered to interject. He'd tried to stop himself from treating the girl gently, and she'd noticed that too. It wasn't in his heart to be mean to the kid anymore. She was too scared to treat roughly. Too innocent to understand what the hell was going on.

But he felt weird, because Lilian had been running off with the intention of finding someone she could love. And slow old Lionel had found what she wanted so badly, without lifting a foot to look for it. He looked back at the girl, still breathing slowly and evenly, on the sand. _Goddammit._

She didn't deserve any of this shit. She didn't have any protection from the wasteland, hadn't had time to grow any. He couldn't afford to have her around; and he was right to tell her not to trust him. If it went any further, he didn't know that he could trust himself.

He also couldn't reassure her any more, but he didn't want to make her feel worse. She needed someone to keep an eye on her while she figured out her own demons. Someone _not_ him. She'd only stuck around the ghouls because no one at Stockton seemed to have the time for her, though Lilian hinted that there had been something going on between her and Calhoun. Whatever that was, it was over before it started.

Lionel looked at the beach, the debris that had washed up onto it. Deadwood and bits of trash. The gray water was almost the same color as the sky, creating a dreary effect. It was eerily quiet in St. James. Even more than it had been at his shack, with the chittering of ants occasionally floating over the air. The water didn't even seem to make any noise. He rubbed the right side of his head and hoped he wasn't going deaf in that ear, too.

Standing, he walked toward a building that was falling apart, and glanced up at the rows of shacks lining the road into St. James. Would she come back? He knew she would, she always did. He was patient.

A rustle behind him caught his hearing, a flutter of clothing caught his eye. Lionel whipped out his arm and punched the person trying to be sneaky, hitting him in the corner of the eye. When the boy went down, he reached out and grabbed him by the throat, and pushed him against the crumbling building.

He regarded the boy for a moment, squeezing his throat just enough to keep his hands up at his neck. Not a ghoul. Tanned, skinny, black-haired, and brown eyed, with a faint touch of a beard beginning. Old enough to know better, but young enough to be dumb, still. He shot a glance at Celia, then fixed the boy with a real good stare. "I'm not in a great mood," he said. "So start talking."

_"C-c-c-c-"_ he began to cough out, and Lionel relaxed his hand a bit. _"Cameron Landis, man!"_

Lionel's eye twitched. "Don't know the name," he said.

"Look-k-king for him," the boy sputtered out. "Shifty guy like you―m-might mean leads."

He swore to himself. That spat on the barge had drawn a few eyes, but he'd been hopeful it wouldn't follow them onto the beach. "I don't know any Landises," he lied, and squeezed the boy's throat harder. The boy clawed at his hand, ripping flakes of skin away.

"Let Jesse go," another voice said, behind him. Lionel felt the gentle tap of a gun on the back of his head. He dropped the boy onto the sand, and flicked his eyes to Celia. Still passed out, down the sand.

"Holy moly, Jesse," the one behind him said. "I told you to stay out of St. James." The gun butted against Lionel's head, and he stared forward, patiently.

"I was doing my damn job," the boy said, coughing and spitting up. He stood and rubbed his neck.

"Don't swear, Jesse. Hook any interesting fish?"

Lionel stared at the boy, who swept his swollen eye over him. "Maybe," he gargled. "This one's probably catch-and-release."

"Let's get acquainted, then." The man with the gun moved around to the front, and Lionel looked into the biggest beard he'd seen since Santa Claus still existed. The man was rough-looking, but had black hair, brown eyes, and was a few inches taller than him, but just as heavy. He was dressed for action in leathers. He smiled in an apologetic way and kept the shotgun aimed squarely at Lionel's eyes. "Sorry about this, though. Your name?"

"Why don't you tell me first?" Lionel said. "Seeing as you're so damn _sorry."_

The man laughed, honestly. "Amos Royce," he said. "This is Jesse, my brother."

"Lionel," he said.

"What's up here, Jesse?" Amos asked. "Why'd you incur the fellow's wrath?"

"What?"

Amos sighed. "What happened," he translated, "to make this guy grab you."

The boy shrugged. "I was following a little too closely."

"And why was that, pray tell?" Amos didn't move his eyes off of Lionel.

"That," Jesse said, pointing at Celia. Lionel's hand spasmed.

Amos flicked his eyes to the right and tightened his finger on the trigger. "I guess we should have a little sit-down," he said, his voice growing hard.

All Lionel could do was agree.


	36. Being in Pain

Amos sent Jesse back on the barge to Gladstone, amidst complaint, to retrieve meds for the girl, and to inform Avery that they would be spending some time in St. James. Jesse, with a swollen eye and sore throat, hadn't wanted to go. Amos patiently reminded his younger brother that he had to eat, and who had the caps?

_"You,"_ Jesse groaned.

"Go," Amos shooed him away.

One of the downfalls of being the leader of ARC was that he'd constantly had to learn how to deal with the mishaps that his employees got into. As a result he'd gotten pretty handy with wrapping wounds, retrieving bullets from flesh, and administering emergency first aid. He appointed himself to help this girl out because the ghouls had no idea how to even apply Rad-Away, much less how much would be appropriate for her specific sickness.

Amos found the other ghoul at the Samson, a local bar. He spoke with Medicine Man about the situation, who was, thankfully, understanding. Amos thanked his own lucky stars he'd made friends with the ancient ghoul. Lionel, Lilian Swanton, and Amos set the girl in the empty shack behind the Samson and Amos looked the two ghouls over.

Lilian, he knew. She'd wormed into his confidence by providing ARC with tips on the residents of St. James, while working at the Samson. She'd been a decent informant until he'd released her from the obligation, under the pretense that he couldn't afford to pay her. In reality, he'd not wanted those bony fingers in his pockets. Lilian was lonely, or so he'd thought at the time, and he already had a wife.

And the other... Amos examined the ghoul. He was a big guy, but quiet, and that missing arm was surely a story. He cared for the girl, or so it would appear, but Lilian kept digging at him about the situation and Amos gathered that Lilian and Lionel had been together for a long time. And then the girl came along.

Amos looked the girl over. A healing wound on her face appeared to have been caused by something irregular in shape. A cuff mark around her wrist had bruised and was fading, indicating she'd been imprisoned recently. She was gray from the radiation and thin, almost too thin. Wasn't eating properly, probably. She made little movements in her sleep that made him wonder if she was having a nightmare. He imagined to himself her injuries being caused by this big ghoul that was literally hauling her around the wasteland. He shot a look at the ghoul. He was certainly violent enough.

At any rate, she had to be separated from the ghouls. It just wasn't right, such a young girl traipsing about with them.

"Who is this Cameron Landis?" Lilian asked.

"Fellow skipped out on some bills in Spalding," Amos said. "But the similarity is remarkable. If you didn't tell me that the girl's father was dead, I'd suspect some relation."

"Probably is her old man," Lionel muttered. "With the shitty luck she has, it wouldn't surprise me."

"Man's got a right to know, if he is," Amos said. "Even if he's a deadbeat." He scrutinized the ghouls. "You've explained the situation, but I'm still curious about a few things."

Lilian gave him one of her half-smiles. "What's that?"

"Why did you decide to bring her to St. James?"

Lionel clenched his fist. "Safe," he said. Lilian scoffed.

"Should have kept going. Gladstone is a far better prospect, and has nicer people." Amos rubbed his beard. "I know about this Paramount group, enough to stay away. You think the people down there will be alright?"

"No," the ghoul answered. "Probably dead."

Lilian scoffed. **"Honestly, Lionel―"

"I'm not telling her that," the ghoul said to the woman. "You've seen how she's acting."

"Yes, and you should know better than that," Lilian said. "Encouraging this little girl to come with you, and treating me like you have been!"

Lionel turned on the woman. "You need to stop acting like you've been wronged," he said.

"I haven't? You practically _dumped_ me on the road like a pile of _trash!"_

"Because you lied for _ten fucking years,"_ the ghoul snapped.

"And you forgave me without question, for ten fucking years!" Lilian yelled back. "Until―"

Amos cleared his throat. "Take it outside, folks."

Lionel shot him one of the meanest glares he'd ever received, and grabbed up Lilian's arm, hustling her out the door.

* * *

Lilian wrenched her arm out out of his hand the minute they got outside, angrily. "I'm sorry that you thought you had a monopoly on my attention," she hissed. "That you owned me."

"That is not how I feel, and you know it," Lionel said.

"Do I?" Lilian looked at him sideways. "You're acting ignorant, Lionel."

"Apparently that's all I'm good at," he rumbled.

She scoffed at him. "I never made light of your intelligence," she started. "But you're being _especially_ stupid right now―"

"Goddammit, Lilian―"

"She's not like _us!"_ Lilian said, her eyes aflame with anger. "That girl was fine as a friend, a pleasant thing to have around! But you've gone all soft in the head for her!"

Lionel looked away from Lilian. His chest felt tight. "Don't push me," he said, strained. "You don't think I don't know?"

"She's dangerous for you," Lilian said, touching his arm roughly.

"I know," he said. "Believe it."

"Why would you even want that!" Lilian tightened her hand on the healing wound. He grimaced. "You moved to Grayling to get away from pain!"

He didn't remember. It was something he'd been trying, in vain, to recall. Lionel shook his head. "Being a ghoul _means_ being in pain," he said. "I told you that, when you first changed. You can't run away from that."

She rolled her eyes at him. "So, we're done then? You and me? No more of this?" She waved her hand between them.

"I don't know," he said, achingly. "I really don't, Lilian."

"I might be a damn hypocrite, but I am not comfortable sharing you with that little floozy."

"You aren't sharing!" he said, and grabbed her by the chin, looking into her eyes. "I do love you, you know."

"You patchwork piece of _shit!"_ She threw a fist out and hit at him. He let her bounce off his chest without moving. "You can't have everything! Didn't you tell me that? That no smoothskin would ever want me, that I would never find what I wanted?"

"I did." He closed his eyes and winced. _I'm a hypocrite, now,_ he thought.

"And then she decides to pay some attention to you―"

"She wasn't coming to the shack for me!" he yelled. "Dammit, Lilian, she loves you just as much as me! No one else gave her any attention!"

Lilian laughed, cruelly. "Whatever attention you've been giving is a little more than familial," she said.

Lionel exhaled in anger. "Lilian, please don't make me lose my temper."

"What, you going to hit me? I'm _frightened."_

"I might," he said, seething. He stared her down. She was pushing all the right buttons and he was trying very hard not to lose his temper.

Lilian shook her head and laughed. "What happens when she finds out you aren't a _real_ man?" she sniped at him.

Lionel broke his own rule then, a rule he'd had for one hundred and fifty years. He raised his hand and backhanded her across the mouth, sending her sprawling into the dirt. His hand stayed in the air for a moment, shaking.

_"Goddammit,"_ he muttered, and stalked away from her.


	37. Gone Mad

Celia was sitting on the ground, underneath the starry wasteland sky, when she felt the rumbling. An enormous ghoulified hand rose from the earth beside her, then a shoulder, and a chest. She tumbled forward as the ghoul rose from the dirt under her, and was caught by the massive hand. She curled into a ball, and covered her face.

It brought her up to it's face, and she could see it was not-Lionel, examining her with those starry eyes, and he placed her gently onto the ground. She rolled away from him, and he pulled himself out of the earth. A loud screech in the distance sounded.

Not-Lionel looked up to the sky and put his arm out, as not-Lilian landed in front of him and began attacking him, violently. She crawled into a patch of bushes and hid from the fight. It seemed like it went on forever, until silence reigned, and not-Lionel was the victor.

And then the hand came back, and pulled her from the bushes, and she breathed so fast her heart felt like it would explode in her chest. She was brought up before the white-hot glare of not-Lionel, again, and she sobbed.

He carried her over the ground, for a long time. Her tears were dry before she was put down, onto a floating piece of wood in the middle of a limitless lake, and he sank into the water.

She was alone, then, and she clung to the edge of the wood, drifting away from everything.

Celia woke, reaching out into the dark interior of a metal shack. For a moment she thought she was in Lionel's shack, and then remembered the dream, and sobbed. Two strong arms encircled her, and she cried into a leather-clad shoulder, for a long time. "It's alright," the man said. "You're okay."

She jerked away, in shock, blinking at the man. He was unfamiliar, and her heart jumped in her chest. "Where―"

"I'm Amos Royce," he said, and patted her hand. "You're in St. James. Lionel and Lilian are here, too, so don't worry." But they were alone in the shack.

She felt the dryness in her mouth and coughed. "May I please have some water?"

He handed her a bottle and sighed. "That stuff is something powerful," he said. "I remember my first dose of Rad-Away."

Celia choked on the water, and looked at him in surprise. Rad-Away meant she'd had radiation sickness. When had she gotten irradiated? She thought about it, for a moment. There had been a swath of barrels, through an overpass. Maybe the bog with all the bloatflies.

She **was dying, then, when she was on the barge. Her heartfelt complaints about motion sickness... Lionel had lied to her, told her it wasn't going to kill her. Maybe he thought it would make her feel better. She curled up her knees and held them. "Where's Lionel?" she said.

Amos sighed and she could see that the room was filled with dust motes, drifting aimlessly through the air. "Out," he said. "With Lilian. They'll be back."

"I don't know if I should believe you," she said, cautiously.

_"Good,"_ he said. "You shouldn't trust anyone you don't know."

She looked across her knees at the shaggy-haired man and narrowed her eyes. "I want Lionel."

The leather creaked as he sat back in the chair and rubbed his beard. He looked her over, carefully. She got the feeling that he was assessing her, like he was trying to make up his mind about something, and she didn't like it. "I work with a mercenary group based out of Gladstone," he said. "It's called ARC. Lionel tells me that you three are on the run from Paramount."

_If he trusted this man with that much information, then he must be okay,_ she thought. She held her knees tighter, though. She didn't like this, at all.

"Lionel seems to think you need to be as far away from them as possible," Amos went on. "I agree."

"I'll be safe here," she muttered.

"No, honey," he said, patting her shoulder. "St. James is not a place for people like us."

She brooded for a moment, not answering. _Like us?_ She didn't like that idea. "I want Lionel," she repeated, stubbornly. "I don't want to talk to you."

Amos stood up and walked to the door of the shack, talking to someone outside. She waited for a long time before anyone came back, and when the door finally opened again, Lionel entered the shack.

"Hey, kid," he said. Amos stood behind him, his hands at his side.

Celia stared at Amos for a moment, then uncurled her knees and moved to the edge of the bed. "What's going on?" she asked. "Who is th―"

"Celia," he said, "I need you to listen to me for a minute." He thumped himself onto the other end of the bed.

She breathed faster, near panic. "What―"

"Lilian was right," Lionel rumbled. "This isn't a nice place at all." He looked down at his hand in his lap and clenched his fist. "You don't belong here. I can't keep you safe."

Celia shot a look at Amos and scooted closer to Lionel. "Who―"

"Amos isn't going to hurt you," he said. "He's paying for us to get out of St. James. We're going to ride the barge over to Gladstone."

Lionel was subdued, acting like he had in his shack when he tried to comfort her. "Why?" she asked, suspicious.

Lionel sighed. "Because I shouldn't have dragged you this far, but you can't stay here."

She hesitated, then heard the words again in her head. "What about you, and Lilian?"

"We're coming," he said. "You know we can't go back, either."

Celia looked to Amos. He had sharp eyes on Lionel. "Are you guarding me, for some reason?" she asked.

Amos look at her and smiled, but it wasn't a pleasant smile. "I have my reasons," he said, giving a hard glance to Lionel, who tensed and looked away. Celia knew _something_ had happened.

"I'm sick of this," she announced. "What's going on?"

"We're getting on the barge and going to Gladstone," Lionel said, standing. "No arguing."

"Maybe I should just go home, then," she muttered.

"I wouldn't recommend trying," Amos said. "You're welcome to come stay with my family in Gladstone. No need to travel all the way back down to Grayling."

"Grayling isn't _home,"_ Celia said, deliberately staring at Lionel's back.

"Well," Amos said, shifting position, "either way, it's not a good idea to strike out on your own, ill-prepared for dangers." He looked pointedly at Lionel when he said this.

Celia stood up, wavered a little, and looked Amos straight in the eyes. "You need to leave us alone, _right now,"_ she said, in a grown-up voice that she hadn't known she possessed.

Amos raised an eyebrow at her. "She's all yours, Papa Bear," he said, and slammed the shack door.

"What the―What is going on?!" she asked Lionel, touching his arm.

He pulled it away. "Stop."

"What?" She was confused. "Look, you―you have to tell me something. Why is he acting like that?"

"Celia," Lionel said, low in tone, looking away from her. "You trust too easily, you know?"

She sputtered. _What?_ She hadn't trusted anyone, except him and Lilian, since she exited the Vault.

"You can't trust anyone," he rasped. "Not me, not Lilian, not Amos. Definitely don't trust yourself."

"That was rude," Celia said. "Why are you acting like that? Everyone's gone mad."

Lionel barked a laugh, and rubbed his face. "Sometimes being crazy is a good thing," he said, wistfully. "We're going to Gladstone." He turned to her and her heart fluttered.

_What was that for?_ she wondered. "Okay, but why does Amos think that you're going to hurt me or something?"

Lionel shook his head. "Don't worry about it."

"Like when you told me not to worry about the 'motion sickness'?" she said, angrily, making air quotes.

"Shit," he grumbled. "You did have motion sickness, kid. I won't lie, you had the radiation, too."

"Well, it didn't _kill_ me, obviously!" she said, raising her arms up. "And I didn't turn ghoul or anything. So why the heck is everyone acting so funny?"

Lionel laughed again, and didn't stop for a long time. "Sorry," he said, and she flushed in anger. "I really am, kid." He patted her shoulder, and turned to the door. "We gotta go, though. Amos promised a world of hurt on me if I didn't behave."

"You really have gone mad," she said, watching him move toward the door.

"If I had, you'd be dead," he said solemnly, and left the shack.


	38. How Do You Do

Jesse rode the barge back to St. James, after telling Avery that Amos was helping another lost kid stuck with some ghouls. Avery had hung his head and wondered ruefully if Amos would ever stop being so philanthropic.

"What the hell does that mean?" Jesse asked, spitting.

Avery looked at him with disdain. "Don't swear. You should have stayed in school, Jesse," he said.

He shrugged. Ma complained enough about his eating habits when he was home, surely she didn't need him around more often than twice a week.

He delivered the medicine and waited around the barge, smoking and watching the distance. Amos had said it would be him, the two ghouls, and the girl. Jesse was interested to see how the girl was doing, because the last time he'd seen her she was passed out on the beach. He wondered how long she'd been hanging out with the ghouls, and why she was so beat-up looking. Some of the kids that Amos brought home were in worse shape, but the girls were undoubtedly the worst treated. Sometimes, their scars weren't easy to see.

It was some time before they arrived. He drew in a breath at the ghouls' appearances. Skies above, they looked like shit warmed over. The big one who'd choked him gave him such an awful stare that Jesse had to look away. He rubbed his eye, which was still sore and threw his cigarette into the water when he saw Amos bringing up the rear, the girl in front of him.

Not quite as ill as she had been. She glanced up at him, nervously, and then stopped short of the gangplank. Amos spoke to her in a low tone, his voice vibrating through the air. He was trying to convince her to board. After a few minutes of shaking her head and looking at the water with fear, the one-armed ghoul strode out and grabbed her by the arm.

Jesse didn't hear what he said, but it was enough to spur her to move. Jesse moved down the deck toward the group and took position behind Amos.

"A round of introductions is in order, I think," Amos said. "You all know my name. I'm Amos Royce. This is my brother, Jesse Royce. Jesse?"

"We work for ARC," Jesse added. "Usually we're mercenaries, occasionally a rescue team."

The big ghoul gave him another one of those looks, like he was a Brahmin steak. Jesse was starting to wonder if he might try to eat him, or if he'd just like to play with his intestines.

"This," Amos said, indicating the female ghoul, "is Lilian Swanton." The male ghoul made a disgusting noise and the girl looked at him, sharply.

"This is 'just Lionel'," Amos said, smiling widely. "And this is Celia Landis."

The barge set off and the girl immediately grabbed onto the railing, her knuckles white. "We'll be escorting them up to Gladstone, where we will work out an arrangement for them to pay me back for various things, including this trip."

"Shit, Amos, _you_ paid?" Jesse was surprised. Amos usually argued for an hour before paying for anything.

"Don't swear, Jesse. Yes, I did. We have a working theory that Miss Landis might be related to our latest acquisition." Amos nodded at her. "And I invited her over for dinner."

"Seriously?" Jesse asked, eyeing the girl.

"Seriously," Lionel said, a severe tone in his voice. Jesse looked up and away.

The barge rocked in the current. Celia made a pained face. "Where is the―"

Amos grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her toward Jesse. "Show her the head," he said. "I need to speak with these two, anyway."

"I guess," Jesse said. "C'mon, chick." He waved her onward, down the deck toward the lone cabin in the middle of the barge. Jesse always though the barges looked like houses without walls. He ran his hand along the posts, as they walked.

Before they reached the head, she leaned herself onto the railing and threw up into the water. Jesse stood beside her, waiting. "Motion sickness, huh!" he said.

It was a moment before she answered. "Yes."

"I don't get that anymore," he said, clucking his tongue.

"Lucky." She heaved. "I feel like I'm dying."

"Aw, it can't be _that_ bad," he snorted.

"I took a saw to the back once," she moaned. "I'd rather that." She gagged.

"Huh!" He laughed a little. "That is pretty bad, chick. How'd you get a saw in the back?" He took out his cigarettes and offered her one. She shook her head and sank down onto the deck.

"No, thank you."

He didn't know what to say. She didn't seem to want to talk. He stood there in silence for a moment. Man, but it is boring on a trip, without conversation, he thought. After a minute or two, he crouched down beside her and asked, "You alright?"

"No," she said, her eyes jammed closed and head firmly wedged against the railing. "But I'll live."

He sat down and finished his cigarette before thinking of something to say. "What do you want to talk about?" he asked.

She shook her head slightly, and winced.

"Well, Amos will let us know when he's done, and just sitting here is boring."

"Some things are boring," she said, strained.

"Hell, I dunno. I can't think of anything." He stood and pitched the butt into the water.

She sighed. "Exothermic reactions."

"What!"

"You know," she said, a corner of her mouth tugging. "Explosions."

He laughed incredulously. "Most people start out with 'hello, what do you do, who's your family' or something."

"Hello," she murmured, and opened her eyes.

"I'll start," he said. "When I'm not working with Amos, I help my Ma down at the farm with the Delaines. Sometimes I go scavving."

"What is a Delaine?" she asked, watching him.

"Sheep," he said. "We sell the wool to the mill."

"Huh." She smiled a little. "I've never seen a sheep."

"Sheep are gross, chick. You ain't missing nothing." He looked down at her. "Anyway, there's like eighteen of us on the farm, but mostly it's Ma, Amos, and Avery who run it."

"Eighteen?" she asked.

"Amos picks em up 'round the wastes," he shrugged. "Your turn."

She sighed, and closed her eyes. "I worked on a farm, too, but I only had Brahmin."

Jesse waited for a moment. "That's it?" he asked.

"That's it."

"What about family?" he asked, leaning on the railing.

She paused. Then, "Lionel and Lilian."

Jesse drew a circle with his finger on the post and looked out over the water. The gray waves rippled and bobbed, rocking the barge gently. He looked down at her and poked her in the hip with his boot. "You getting beat by the ghoul?" he asked, lighting another cigarette.

"No," she answered, distantly.

Jesse sighed. "I won't tell, or nothing," he said. "Just curious."

"Curiosity will get you killed out in the wastes," she murmured, and pulled her knees up to her chest, keeping her eyes closed. He was really curious now, the relationship between the two.

Jesse flopped back down on the deck. "Well, right now we are on a barge in the middle of Lake Michigan. And if anyone is gonna kill us―well, kill _me,_ anyway―it's gonna be that one-armed ghoul with the temper."

"What did you do?" she asked, quietly.

"I guess he don't like being followed," Jesse said, airily.

She chuckled dryly. "I won't let him kill you," she said. "Unless he has to."

"That's _reassuring,"_ Jesse said sarcastically, as Amos approached the two.

"We should be in the clear about what's going on," Amos said. "Whether or not anyone is happy with it."

"What is going on, Amos?" Jesse asked.

Amos looked at Celia. "When we get there, Celia will talk with the Landis man, see if our theory is correct. Jesse, you and Avery get to jot down to Grayling and deliver Lilian safely to her home. Lionel wants to send a message to Stockton, too."

"She's leaving?" Celia looked worried.

"So she says. I'll let you talk to them about that. Lionel's gonna be working off the debt at ARC, so you'd better behave, Jesse." Amos stuck his thumbs in his belt loops.

"What? Man, seriously, why you gotta get on me?" Jesse sighed. "Avery ain't gonna like this."

"We can afford it," Amos said. "I don't leave loose ends." He held an arm out to Celia, who took it and stood. She pitched forward and moaned dizzily. "Let's get you back to Lionel," Amos said. "Jesse, you'd better lose those cigarettes before I come back."

Jesse rolled his eyes, walked to the other end of the barge and smoked furiously.


	39. Liar

Darkness had fallen on the barge, stalled out in the water due to engine trouble. The lights in the cabin shone out from the windows and glinted on the water. The rocking that had made Celia so sick had stopped, and the moon was reflecting off the black water of the lake. Lionel sat with his back to the railing, looking out over the water, with Celia leaning on his shoulder. She was asleep.

At least it was his bad arm. He felt ashamed that even the slightest contact with her stirred up uncomfortable feelings. Lilian had gone down to the far end of the barge and hadn't spoken to him since that afternoon. The talk with Amos had been civil enough, though Lilian had made it clear that she wasn't going to be around if his behavior didn't improve. He hoped she wouldn't come and try to accuse him again.

Celia, leaning on his shoulder, put pressure on his healing wound. It was painful, but it kept him solid, feeling the sharp stings when she moved in her sleep. He tensed up and tried not to watch her too often.

Amos and Jesse were playing cards, some game similar to poker. He'd declined the offer to join, since he would have needed two hands to hold the cards without showing. Amos was winning.

"You're sure about this?" Amos asked him again.

Lionel sighed, and it sounded like a pebble in a blender. "Yeah," he said. "I'm sure."

Once Amos had understood that Celia was not in immediate danger from the ghouls, he'd relaxed considerably. Celia herself told him the story about her facial wound, and her panic attack. "It's just―well, you're losing your missus," he said. "I don't see why you'd want to give up... your daughter?" he guessed, awkwardly.

"Friend," Lionel said, rubbing his hand on the deck and scratching loose a piece of skin. "Nothing more."

_You liar,_ he told himself.

"Still, you see my point," Amos concluded.

"I hear you," Lionel said.

"She's gonna freak out," Jesse said.

"How would you know, kid?" he asked him, edgily.

Jesse hiked a thumb over his shoulder. "She told me the only family she had was you and Lilian."

Lionel sighed. "She has a brother, a sister-in-law, and a niece."

"She didn't say anything about 'em."

"She'll make new family." He grunted. "Just like with me and Lilian." He grimaced. "Come move her, my leg is going numb and I can't tell if I've been sitting too long or it's nerve damage."

Jesse grinned, and pried her off Lionel's shoulder. She stirred but didn't wake, and Jesse propped himself under her like Lionel had. He felt a sting, but there was nowhere else for her to sleep but the hard deck. He went for a walk, because his leg _was_ numb.

It was quiet other than the banging of tools in the cabin. He went to the other side of the deck, and stood at the railing. Lilian joined him, after a moment.

"What are you planning?" she asked him.

"Don't know what you mean," he said.

"I know that look. You're up to something." She put her hand on top of his, on the railing.

Lionel stared at her hand, blankly. Like his, she'd lost most of her skin and the muscle underneath was without barrier to the ravage of the wastes. How many times had he imagined that he were no longer a ghoul, when he first changed? _Many._ How many times had he tried to remember Lilian as she was, not the aberration he saw here? _None._ He'd learned that lesson. It was pointless anymore, to think he could be or feel normal. Maybe when he was younger, he still felt hope, but never with Lilian. He'd given up on bothering; she stopped whining about it after the first two or three years.

"Whatever," he said, without emotion. "I'm not 'up to' anything."

"I'll forgive you," she said. "But you have to forgive me, and we can move on."

"I don't have to forgive, or forget, or remember, or let go," he told her. "We're not anything, anymore."

She removed her hand from his. "So that's it, then? You're done with me."

Lionel leaned on his hand, on the railing, and sat down. "I'm done," he said, agreeing.

The look on her face, he had to turn away. "Are you not going back?" she asked, angrily. "All the work you put into the shack, your home?"

"Don't know," he shrugged.

"Because of me?" she asked, her voice raising. "Or because of that little girl? She should be back in her Vault, not here in the wasteland."

Lionel sighed. "I'm not fighting about it."

She screwed up her face. "Well," she said, "I _am!"_

Lilian shoved him, hard. He lifted his hand up off the railing to fend her off, but she'd knocked him off-balance and he'd forgotten that he was on the railing. With another shove, he fell off the barge, sinking into the night-darkened waters.

* * *

Celia woke up to a clamor. Everyone was gone, and she'd been laid out on the deck of the barge. A loud splash sounded on the other end of the barge. She rose to her feet, and went to that side, slowly. A group of people were gathered around the railing, chattering. She wondered what had happened.

"What's going on?" she asked the nearest person.

"Someone fell overboard," he said, frowning. "That black-haired kid jumped in after."

She frowned, and looked around. Amos was standing with Lilian, who had a stricken look on her face. "What's―" she started.

Amos tensed up and Lilian cried, _"Lionel fell in!"_

_"What?!"_ Celia spun and gripped the railing. "What happened?" Her heart hit the bottom of her chest as she stared down at the black water.

Amos pulled her away, holding her arm firmly. "Jesse went in after him," he told her. "Even as dark as that water is, no one is better at swimming than Jesse."

Lilian bit her mouth and said, "Lionel was a sailor. He can swim."

"But―" Celia looked back at the water, her chest heavy. "But he only has one arm―" _Because of me,_ she thought. She swallowed, pushing the sick feeling down.

"Trust me, honey, he'll be sweet as candy," Amos said.

Two whole minutes passed. The barge operators turned the lights on the outside of the barge down toward the water. Celia fought the urge to hyperventilate, breathing carefully. The skin on the back of her head tingled.

Then, with a huge swell, Jesse broke the water and hauled Lionel up onto the barge. Amos and a crewman pulled him over the rails and laid him onto the deck. Her hands clenched. He wasn't moving. She stopped herself from going to him; she'd only be in the way. Amos checked his wrist and neck for a pulse.

Jesse, in a powerful motion, pulled himself out of the water and landed on his feet with a thump. Sopping wet, he moved to her side and took his shirt off, squeezing out the water.

"Heh," he chuckled. "Guess he can't kill me now that I saved his life."

Celia whimpered a little. He still wasn't moving. _Lionel,_ she thought, _please be alive._

Jesse laid his shirt on the rail and held out his arms to her. "C'mere," he said, and wrapped his damp arms around her. "He'll be alright," he said, patting her on the back.

The awkward hug distracted her long enough to break her concentration. "What are you doing?" she asked, annoyed.

"Using you as a towel," he grinned.

"Stop," she said, grumpily, and pushed him away. "It's not funny."

"Oh?" The tanned face split even wider, and he put his hands on his hips. "Look over there." She looked, and Lionel was sitting up, barking out coughs. "He totally owed me that one."

Celia darted to Lionel's side, breathing fast. She laid a hand on his arm, but he shook her off, leaning forward.

"What happened?" Amos asked, extending a hand to help him up.

Slowly, Lionel stood, on his own, without help. He looked at the people around him on the barge, gathered to watch the disturbance. Focusing, he strode forward, and grabbed up Lilian by the front of her shirt, and pushed her back to the railing. He pushed her halfway over the edge, holding her over the rail just far enough to cause her to panic.

"I didn't _mean_ it!" she shrieked. "It was an _accident! I swear!"_ She struggled against him, her hands tightening on the rails. _"LIONEL! NO!"_

Everyone was too shocked to step forward. Celia moved to Lionel's side with a surge of adrenaline and fear, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Lionel," she said, softly. "Please don't." Her heart broke when he looked at her, his white-starred eyes holding so much pain and anger. _"Please,"_ she repeated. "Don't do this." Tears welled up in her eyes.

"Is he going feral?" someone in the crowd whispered.

The spell was broken, then. Lionel backed up and dropped Lilian onto the deck, staring down at her with such a hard expression it would have cracked stone. Celia went to Lilian's side and helped her up, leading her away from the mess.

"It _was_ an accident!" she sobbed, tearlessly.

"It's alright now," Celia soothed, firmly gripping the woman's arm. She pulled out a bit of ripped cloth and offered it to Lilian, who stiffened.

"How can you be so damn―_nice!_ After all that's happened?!" she asked, rudely.

"We're all having a hard time," Celia said. "I don't know what's going on with you and Lionel, but I don't want to lose a friend because of it." She released Lilian on the other end of the barge.

Lilian sputtered. "You're so―_infuriating!"_ She clenched her fists, and shook. "Acting so damn _innocent!_ I didn't mind that when you were family, but he started acting―_smitten!"_

Celia didn't understand. "Lilian," she said, nervously, "what―"

"No! You listen to me! Lionel was _mine!"_ The ghoul woman shook harder, looking like she was about to seize.

"I really don't understand this!" Celia said, exasperated. "What are you talking about?!"

"I ought to have thrown _you_ off the barge," Lilian said, cruelly.

"What the _hell,_ Lilian!"


	40. Did You Win

It was interesting, Celia thought, after the fact, that Lilian was so good at fist-fighting. She punched Celia hard, smashing her lip into her teeth. "I've lost _him,_ lost _everything,_ because of _you―you simpering little shit!"_ she shrieked, and pulled back for another punch.

She'd never been in a fist fight before, and so didn't know what to do. Lilian hit her in the mouth, again, and Celia fell sideways onto the deck. Lilian kicked her in the stomach, hard, shrieking.

Someone shouted, further down the barge, and Celia felt all the unspoken anger she'd had recently bubble up. Something snapped, finally.

She got up quickly and knocked the ghoul back, with a push. Lilian came around to punch her again, and Celia dodged, hitting Lilian in the side of the head as she went past her, then grabbed her by the throat when she spun around. Lilian dug bony fingers into her face, tearing her skin, and pulled at her hair. Celia squeezed with both hands, gritting her teeth. She saw red, heard choking noises.

A thin but strong arm came around her waist, pulling her away, while thick fingers unhooked hers from Lilian's neck. She struggled, kicking out at the ghoul, as she was forced away. Jesse picked her up around the waist and plunked her down across the deck.

"Sheesh," he said, holding her down at a shoulder. "We can't get to Gladstone fast enough!"

Celia stared across the deck at Amos and Lilian, a dull expression on her face.

"You calm down," Jesse said. "Take a couple of deep breaths and just relax."

"I'm sick of all this," Celia said, under her breath. She tried to get up, but Jesse held her firm.

"Trust me on this one," he said, a rueful smile on his face. "Whatever's going on, it will be easier to deal with in the morning."

"Secured, Jesse?" Amos called.

"Yeah," he called back. To her, he said, "Don't move, okay?"

Celia spent the rest of the night wondering where Lilian had come up with that idea, that Lionel was enamored of her, and how she herself had come up with such a serious attitude out of nowhere. It wasn't in her nature to fight, much less fight like she meant to kill.

The barge began to move after a while, and she was sick again. Jesse sat by her the whole time. He wasn't allowed to leave her alone, but he kept making funny faces at her to cheer her up, and she didn't think he was taking the situation very seriously.

What it looked like to the others on the barge, she didn't know. Snippets of conversation came over the air to her ears, giving her some idea. The ghoul woman had accused her of stealing away Lionel (which was _not_ true), and had tried to kill Lionel (Celia highly doubted that). She recalled Lilian's attitude, her meanness when her secret had been exposed. Lionel had been showing her a lot of attention lately. Some of the underhand comments that the people on the barge were making... like she had ever done _that!_ She flushed.

Jesse tried to make conversation. He was like a small child, couldn't stand the silence. It irritated her, but she was sucked into it anyway.

"So, there I was, standing on the fence post, and this enormous ram is out for my blood," Jesse said. "I was thanking my lucky stars, I managed to make it up the post, and out of the pen." He balanced on one leg and wiped his forehead, mimicking.

"Did he ever come back for round two?" she asked, looking up at him.

"You better _believe_ it!" Jesse put his foot down. "The old bastard knocked me flat on my ass the next time I was in there. Amos had to save my butt and put him down."

"You get into a lot of trouble," she said, and leaned her head back onto the railing. She still felt sick, but it was less than before.

_"Pssh,"_ he said, waving a hand. "Nothing I can't handle."

"It's a miracle then, that you're still alive," she teased.

"Well, that's a fine thing to say!" he miffed.

Celia found herself liking Jesse. When he spoke, it was easy to listen to, easy to get involved. There was something about him that just drew you in. Not at all like the stuck-up and often serious people of the Vault.

For a moment, she thought about Ed and Ann, and Virginia. Virginia's birthday was coming up in a few days, if it hadn't already. Were they okay? Had the soldiers left, or were they still there?

"You got quiet," Jesse said. "What's up?"

She sighed. "Nothing," she said.

"And I'm a blue-butted Brahmin," he said. "Spill it."

"I was thinking about the town," she said, and put her legs out, stretching. "If they were all okay."

"They all ghouls, like St. James?"

"No, just..." she sighed. "Just people."

"Why wouldn't they be okay?" he asked, rotating his arm.

"Because I got them in trouble," she muttered, pulling her knees up to her chest.

"What, like, being chased by a mad pack of Brahmin, or...?"

"Jesse!" Amos called. "Come here, I need you."

"Ehhhhh!" Jesse hung his head dramatically. "Sorry, chick, gotta go."

When he had gone, the familiar weight of Lionel was at her side. He sat motionlessly, for a while, and she tried to figure out what to say.

"Okay?" she said, finally.

He grunted. "You?"

"I'm fine," she said. She looked up and examined the boards of the barge's roof. A few minutes passed and she tried not to ask about what was on her mind.

"You lost some hair," he said, blandly.

"Yeah," she answered.

"And got a swollen lip."

"Yeah."

"Did you win?" he asked, abruptly.

She laughed, sadly. "Fight got broken up."

"Mmm," he said, and put his legs out, leaning his arm on the railing.

"Lionel?"

"What?" he asked.

"Why does she think she's lost everything?"

He sighed. Celia liked the sound, like rocks bouncing against each other. "She's angry. I gave her her walking papers."

"...What?"

"Told her to go, not come back."

"Oh." Celia relaxed and put her legs out beside his. "So, you're... not together, anymore?"

He looked away. "We're not."

"I'm sorry. Was it my fault?"

Lionel laughed meanly. "Don't be sorry," he said. "It's not your fault she's a tart."

She made a disapproving noise. "I don't want to be the one who caused it."

"You didn't." He ran his hand down his shirt. "This was several years coming."

She sighed. "What's going to happen now?"

He grumbled. "Like Amos said. Go to this town, make some caps, pay him back."

She took a breath. "I meant you, me, Lilian."

No answer came. Celia poked at her lip, wincing. After a long time, he asked, "Do you like the Royce brothers?"

"They seem alright," she said. "Jesse tells interesting stories. Amos, I guess he's a good guy, helping us out."

Lionel nodded, slowly. "You'd stay with them, it'd be comfortable?"

She stopped herself, nervously picking at the fabric of her pants. "What are you saying?"

Lionel shrugged.

"Are _you_ leaving, too?" A pain in her chest bloomed.

"Might be safer."

She pulled her knees up and clutched them tightly. "You should have just left me in Stockton," she mumbled, trying not to cry.

"No," he said. "There's a big difference between Paramount and these ARC guys."

"But if you're just going to leave me with strangers―"

"Celia," he interrupted, chiding.

"Well, you _are!"_ She scooted away from him, putting distance between them.

"I'm too old for this shit," he muttered. "Don't know why I even like you. Damn bird-brained women."

She felt betrayed. He'd dragged her across the miles, through radiation, bloatflies, ants, and St. James, without saying a word about what was going to happen when they got "there". Now he was giving her up, dumping her on some random people they'd met. _Why?_

Because she was stupid, she'd gotten into too much trouble, couldn't take care of herself.

"Just _go,_ then!" she cried, and the tears came. Lionel moved closer to her, wrapped his arm around her, and squeezed gently. She shuddered with a sob.

"It's not forever," he rumbled.

_...That was what he told Lilian, when we left. Look at what happened,_ she thought, and completely lost it.


	41. Vacation

Wade expected the ISD piece to be in the ant mounds outside Celia's hideout. He knew she hadn't been rounded up with the rest of Stockton, much to Mayer's dismay. Neither had the ghoul who was so attached to her. After travelling to Stockton, finding nothing in the now-abandoned town or the ant mounds, Wade visited the little hideout but didn't search through it. No one was there, of course, the door was locked. He expected that, too.

The infrasonic emitter was still operational, and no ants had overrun the base. He looked up at the tower and entered the radio tower, and disabled it. He didn't like the feel of the sounds as they vibrated through his skin. All other equipment at the base was running as it had when Sigma left.

For a few weeks he camped out in Stockton, and cared for the Brahmin that were left behind, tending the crops that were going to waste. He ate in the mess hall, borrowed a few books from Calhoun's office. Wade wondered if he'd been successfully conditioned. He didn't want to hope that any of the people were still alive. It was pointless.

He reviewed the information on the ISD again. Both pieces were capable of emitting a distinct infrasonic signal. If it was near, and active, he should be able to locate it with his Pip-Boy. He considered it unlikely that the ISD would be active, though he did scan the area frequently. _It's probably sitting in some wastelander's trash heap, or buried in a pile of radioactive sludge,_ he thought.

Wade moved outwards from the base in a spiral, scanning and investigating. Every time he saw a hot sunrise, or a cold sunset, he stopped to stare out over the wastes. He was thankful for the opportunity. Every slow-moving body of water, every green bit of scrub, every small animal he ran across, represented what he'd been denied before. It was enlightening to move across the wastes without having to shoot at everything in sight, or eliminate what Control considered a threat.

Wade also brushed up on his gun skills. He'd had it easy with Sigma, with three other people who were the best at his back. Armed only with the laser pistol and a finite amount of ammo, he wisely picked up a combat knife from the base as a back-up. This was helpful when he'd run across the yao guai slumbering in the hills west of the base.

Wade's undisguised heavy footfalls, and his beeping Pip-Boy, had woken it up while he was surveying the area near the lake. He'd run into a few Lakelurks, but not anything worse, up to that point. The yao guai came barreling at him from the treeline and Wade panicked, backing into the lake. He'd run through the shallows, shooting at it, until it caught up to him. After a few frenzied jabs and some serious scratches, he'd put it down with the knife.

He limped back to Stockton, and dressed the many, many, wounds he'd received. Stockton was well-supplied with medicine and bandages, and the Mister Handy in the clinic. He ignored the robot, though; it didn't work correctly, and he didn't need it.

While he was tending himself, his motion detector registered movement outside. He armed himself and opened the door of the clinic, slowly, a bandage trailing off his arm.

Two men, both with black hair and leather armor, were walking toward the mess hall. He pulled back and shut the door, and barricaded himself in the O.R. while he finished his bandages.

When he was done, he peered out again. The Pip-Boy indicated that the men had gone into the main building across the road. Wade slipped outside and around the side, entering through the small side door. He edged down the wall of the hallway, listening.

"Definitely," someone said.

"Well, where the _hell_ could all of 'em be?" the other asked.

"Don't swear, Jesse," was the reply. A clicking noise sounded. "If it was unsafe, maybe. Raiders might have forced them out. Lionel said they weren't real smart about the wastes, yet."

"But there were supposed to be robots," the one called Jesse said. "I don't see any of those, anywhere. Or anything other than some minor scavenging, and those graves out there."

"Only two graves, Jesse."

Wade had watched those graves being dug, and he recalled the names of the people in them.

_"Hell,_ Avery―"

"Don't. Swear." A smacking sound came.

_"Mnngh!"_ Jesse groaned. "Stop treating me like a kid!"

"Then stop acting like one. Back-up plan?"

"Fine, let's leave the message. I'll look around for food."

"It is strange, though," the one called Avery said. "No one's here, but the crops are being harvested? And the cattle look well cared for." A loud scraping noise began, and Wade couldn't hear anything over it.

He moved to the double doors leading into the mess hall and took a quick look, but was spotted. The younger of the two raised a rifle to his eye and aimed. "Freeze!" he yelled. "Avery, company!"

Wade kept his pistol up, advancing on the two. "Why are _you_ here?" he asked. The older one, Avery, had been etching a message onto the wall with a power tool. "All Well", it read.

"Whoa, man," Jesse said. "That's far enough. We were looking for the people who lived here."

"Shut up, Jesse," Avery said. "I'm Avery Royce, this is my brother Jesse. You?"

Wade looked from one to the other. Neither looked at all familiar. "Calhoun," he said.

"Oh, good," Avery said. "This is for you, then." He gestured at the wall.

"Yeah?" Wade asked, suspiciously. "Who from?"

"A guy named Lionel." Avery cleared his throat. "He said to tell you everyone's fine, we went north, back after a while."

"That one-armed bastard better not come back here," Wade said, imitating Mayer.

"Why not?" Jesse asked, and was shushed by Avery.

"Because," Wade said, putting himself into the role of the former Overseer, "he lead those damn soldiers down here, got all my people taken south, while he skipped town with the girl."

The two men shared a glance. "What was her name?" Jesse asked.

"Celia, of course, who else?" Wade asked, annoyed. That was an important question to answer. Now they had no reason to doubt him.

"Who's in the graves?" the kid asked.

"Officer Pesaro and the Knowles boy," Wade answered. "Shot down by Sigma."

Avery looked around. "Why are you still here?"

"This is my home," he said, sadly. "I couldn't keep Sigma from taking the others, but I can keep this safe, at least."

Avery nodded. "Okay, man, I get you." He looked at Jesse. The boy lowered his rifle, finally. "You, uh, wanna send a message back for Lionel or Celia?"

Wade considered. The girl had sticky fingers, picking up things she wasn't allowed. She'd taken the striker from On-the-Bay, the prod from his belt, and he'd heard rumors about her from the townsfolk. It was possible that she might have found the ISD and pocketed it, either in the ant mound, or around the town. Who knows what she would have done with it? And going north would take him further away from Detroit, and his inevitable death.

"Where did that grungy old ghoul take Celia, anyway?" he asked the two. "She doesn't belong with him."

Jesse relaxed a little and laughed. "Way north, man."

"You heading back that way?" Wade asked. "I think she ought to be told what really happened by a witness." He hated to make the situation sound so wrong, but it was a role.

"We can run you up north," Avery said, "but you pay for your own food, and we aren't bringing you back unless you hire us."

Wade nodded. "Alright," he said. "Let's go north."


	42. Gladstone

"Jesse was right," Celia said, pulling her broom back toward her. "Sheep _are_ gross."

"That sack of Brahmin droppings wouldn't know gross if it hit him in the _face,"_ Cathy said, working her broom alongside. "He never had to catch them babies coming out, or clean up the mess after it."

The girls were cleaning out a stall where a Delaine had lambed early. Celia hadn't expected the process to be so wet; Brahmin, by comparison, were dry as a bone. She guessed it was all the lake water the Delaines had access to.

Cathy was Jesse's oldest "sister" at the farm. Celia had learned that the entire family, aside from Amos, Avery, and Ma Royce, were a collection of men, women, and children; they were all either lost, unwanted, or had nowhere to go, like herself. They'd come from all over the place, one even from Toskey, having been scooped out of harm's way by Amos.

Cathy had been living out of a hole in the ground along the Hi-Highway, to the east, forced to prostitute herself for caps, since she was quite young. She joked that in the eight years she'd been working at the farm, she could have saved enough caps to buy the damn place, if they paid her. Everyone at the farm worked for the food on the table and roof over their heads.

Amos and Avery were twins, she found out, and the only living biological children of Ma. Avery looked exactly like Amos without a beard, and they both were the splitting image of Ma. She was much more stern, an older, meaner, female version of them. Ma didn't stand for tomfoolery, and was not particularly interested in seeing her "children" come to harm. It explained why Amos had gotten Celia out of St. James, though.

She watched the young people on the farm with an iron gleam in her eyes, zealous about keeping them from trouble. Celia was a little intimidated. So was Lionel, she thought.

The first, last, and only time Lionel spoke with Ma Royce, his attitude had gone as soft as the Delaine's fluffy wool, and his voice humbled. Her scathing glances scored him to the bone.

He hadn't come back since.

Celia missed her alone time, but there was never any shortage of things to do around the forty acre farm. Eighteen "kids" of varying ages ran about, doing chores, cooking, picking apples in the orchard or tending the sheep. They were aged five through twenty-seven, Cathy said, and on the farm, age didn't matter for squat. Adulthood, she said, was something that only Ma could tell you, when you achieved it.

When Celia's birthday came―she hadn't kept track, _but when someone tells you that it's your birthday, you shouldn't argue,_ she thought―Ma had made something similar to a birthday cake, only five times larger and tasting vaguely of hay. With a grand, sweeping motion, she declared that Celia was officially a Royce family member.

Lionel had not attended.

Jesse had, and he ate as much as three people, stuffing himself silly until Cathy had run him out of the kitchen with a broom. As many insults as Cathy heaped upon him, she clearly did love him, and would sneak food out to him on occasion, while Ma wasn't looking. Ma complained that Jesse alone could eat her out of house and home by simply staying on the farm for three days.

Celia slept with Cathy and two other girls, in the hayloft above the Delaines. She fell asleep to the low grunting of the sheep, the occasion bleat rousing her from slumber. It was indescribably nice to live on the farm, and not have to worry about feeling unwelcome. Someone would always be around to make her feel better, when she was down.

She tried not to think about Lilian. The woman's fight with her had broken her heart, and she couldn't bear to carry that weight around. She found she could tell Cathy all the things she had entrusted to Lilian, before, without being judged. Just like Lilian.

She missed Lionel, though. Sometimes, when she was lying in the hay, she would close her eyes and imagine Lionel was sleeping in the corner, jagged breaths causing his ruined shoulder to rise and fall. She tried not to imagine that too often, because then she would cry.

"He sounds like a real jerk," Cathy said, when Celia tried to explain how she met him.

"Sometimes, but isn't everyone?" Celia replied.

_"Yes!"_ Cathy said, maliciously, and whipped a rotten apple at Jesse's head. He was in the tree, tossing down apples to their baskets, but only picking the bad ones.

Jesse was "the bad kid". Every family had one, Cathy said. "He counts for _two,_ around here," she added, glaring. Jesse ducked and hooted at them, and climbed off into the orchard's trees.

Until he returned Lilian to Grayling, he'd been following Celia around the farm, keeping an eye on her, she supposed. She liked his company well enough, but Cathy was starting to get annoyed.

The meeting with Cameron Landis had been delayed. Avery had turned him over to the custody of Spalding's sheriff, who'd collected the caps he forgot to pay, and let him go. The last anyone had seen of him, he was headed east on the Hi-Highway. Celia didn't really care about it; she had too much to think about at the farm already, and she'd never known her father. And if it was him, she didn't know if she wanted to hear the reason he didn't come back to the Vault.

Jesse and Avery returned from Grayling, with important news. Calhoun had come up from Stockton, to speak with her. Celia's heart thudded in her chest, but she had a nagging feeling in her head. Why would he leave the people of Stockton, and why would he come alone? She would have expected Ed and Pesaro to come to get her, not Calhoun.

And she was right to have worried. When she stepped into the crumbling room that Ma called her parlor, she jumped out of her skin and flattened herself on the wall near the door. _Wade!_

"Hello, Celia," he said, politely.

"No," she whispered.

"I'm not here for you," he said. "I will tell you what happened after you left, though."

"I don't want to hear what you have to say," she said, gritting her teeth.

"Officer Pesaro and Jason Knowles are dead," he said, "along with an older woman and three young people who died on the trip down to Detroit."

Celia, who had been reaching for the door knob, froze. _"What?"_

"Sigma took them south to Detroit," he said. "Even your brother and his family."

She turned to look at him, angry. "Why are you pretending to be Calhoun?"

"I needed to find you," he said.

_"I'm not going to Detroit,"_ she said, nearly hissing.

"No, no." He sighed. "I'm looking for a metal box, shaped like a L-beam. Have you seen it?"

"No," she said, automatically.

"You're a terrible liar," Wade said. "Even in one word, it's obvious. I'll find it, Celia. Please, work with me?"

She knew he would find it. She remembered the feel of the prod on her stomach, how effortlessly he'd pushed Lionel's arm back into position. He was stronger than he appeared. But, she thought, this is a safe place, and she could yell out for any of the others and they would come running. "You can't have it," she said, "no matter what you might want it for."

He sighed. "Okay, Celia. You were right." He held out his hand, like he had back at the ant mounds. "I am a bad person, just like you said. But, if you give me a chance, I could explain to you why. I know, now."

"Get out," she hissed.

"You don't want to know why your family was taken into slavery?"

"Get _out!"_ she shrieked, clapping her hands over her ears.

"Okay, time to go!" Jesse said, sing-song, as he bustled in and removed Wade from the parlor. Celia sank into a chair and sobbed.


	43. The Hi-Highway

Lionel still wasn't happy. Too many emotions rising up made him feel like the madness was knocking down the walls he'd built up in his head. So he kept busy, kept his mouth shut, kept going.

Because he'd offered to work off all three tickets, and the return ticket for Lilian, he was bound to work for Amos and Avery for a few months, at least. Not that he was going anywhere. He didn't have the courage right now to return to the shack north of Grayling, and showing his face in town would likely get him shot. He swore to himself. He shouldn't have lost his temper with Lilian.

Lionel stood straighter, and cracked his neck. He was too damn old to be tracking down criminals. Everything hurt, anymore, when he had a chance to sit down. Life was one long gallery of pain. He tried not to think about nearly drowning. Tried not to think about _her,_ either.

The objective he was pursuing made that impossible. Because Amos was a jackass, or because he was one of those types who thought he could judge someone by the way they faced a challenge, he'd sent Lionel out to track down Cameron Landis. Lionel couldn't even begin to explain how maddening it was to have that on his mind, or how irritated it made him feel to know he had to track down some deadbeat dad. Amos claimed it was because he'd seen Celia's family and knew the faces better than anyone, including Amos. Landis might be notorious for running out on his bills, but Amos dealt with a lot of criminals. He didn't recall them all.

Lionel didn't know that he wanted to find the man. He'd seemingly abandoned the Vault, even if his wife had sent him outside. She'd not even given birth to Celia, so the man would not even know her at all, except for her last name.

Lionel sat down again, on a pile of asphalt, looking up and down the empty road. He missed his radio, back at the shack. A little jazz would have perked the gray-walled sky right up. It would be darker, soon.

He kicked a piece of broken asphalt. He missed Lilian's raspy singing, too. He wondered if that was what she did to earn caps in St. James. He'd never asked, was too afraid of the answer. _Goddamn, I hope that's the case,_ he thought. Any other solution made him sick to his stomach.

Lionel felt a pain in his heart, pressed his hand to it. He stood up, jerkily. _Find the man,_ he thought. _Get it over with. She'll go away with him,_ likely somewhere he wouldn't know where she was. _It will hurt like hell,_ maybe more than losing his arm, _but I'll live._

He loped down the Hi-Highway, past the trees and rusted out cars. Used to be the Hiawatha. Past the buildings that looked like someone had scooped out their roofs and insides. _Like a goddamn spooky jack-o-lantern,_ he thought. He laughed at himself for being dumb.

Once, he had his revolver out, standing as still as possible. He could hear the snuffling of the wild pigs that were all over the place on the northern peninsula. He waited patiently for the razorbacks to pass him by. He couldn't afford to tangle with that.

He stayed on the highway, stopping occasionally to get information. Rough people, living rough lives, much rougher than the relative safety of the Grayling area. He wished he'd stayed down there, for a moment. But he knew it wouldn't have gone well.

A town loomed ahead, lights and loud voices in the darkness. Lionel steeled himself and picked his way through the shanty town to the bar, lit up with a neon sign that simply said "Bar". He nodded to himself.

The bar was surprisingly well-lit, inside. He spoke with the bartender, who was willing enough to speak to him. Lionel paid way too much for a bottle of whiskey and sat down, waiting. He chuckled to himself. Sometimes being stupid paid off.

An hour later, and eighty caps down, Lionel was trying to figure out how to get up off the stool without falling down, when the objective walked into the bar. He swallowed stale whiskey and watched the man walk to a stool. The description, along with his own recollection of Ed Landis, was spot on.

"Your boy?" the bartender asked, winking at him. Lionel nodded, and slowly got off the stool.

He moved around behind the old man, blinking back the wobbling image. Thin, gray-haired, a wide jaw, copper-colored eyes, a rough beard that grew patchily along his cheeks. He was wrinkled as all get out. "Hey," Lionel said.

"Fuck off, _rotgut,"_ was the answer.

"You know a woman called Barbara Landis?" he asked, ignoring the insult.

To his credit, Landis did not startle easily. "Known lots of women."

"This one was your wife," Lionel said.

"Huh," Landis said. "After twenty years, I ain't so sure I got a wife anymore."

"Let's talk," Lionel said, and jerked a thumb to a table in the corner.

"Suppose," Landis said, and stood up, carrying his whiskey.

Lionel paid for another bottle and brought it to the table, setting down two shot glasses. The other people in the bar watched him carefully, but didn't make a move. He ignored them.

"So," Landis said, holding out a shot glass for Lionel to fill, "what's up with Barbara these days?" He ignored that he had a full bottle of whiskey of his own.

"It's a long story," Lionel warned.

"Eh, they all are."

"After you left," he started, "your wife had a little girl. Named her Celia." Landis only grunted. "When she was four, Barbara died in a fire."

"Well," Landis said, and downed his shot. Lionel blinked back the weariness of too much to drink, and poured two more shots.

"Jack Calhoun became Overseer," he said. "Your son Ed married a girl named Ann, and had a daughter of his own."

"Someone's moved on," Landis muttered. "And the girl?"

"Was sent out to scout, for the Vault."

Landis swore. "Same cloth," he muttered. "She alive?"

Lionel shrugged. "She's in Gladstone. Was near Grayling, before."

Landis gave a strangled laugh. "I ain't been over the lake in many a year," he muttered.

"I'm here," Lionel said, "on behalf of Amos Royce of ARC. He wants you to come meet the girl, find out if she's really your kid."

"I don't owe that beardy ass nothing," Landis said, suspiciously, and downed his whiskey. "This a trick? I didn't think he'd hire a goddamn zombie."

Lionel drank, and said nothing.

"What, you some kind of special squad, the Mushface Marauders?"

He waited, patiently, poured Landis out another shot.

"So, did your arm just fall off? Or did you scratch too hard?"

He almost laughed. That was a good one, he'd have to remember it. "Are you done?" he asked.

"Maybe yes, maybe no." Landis eyed him through the whiskey glass.

Lionel pushed the half empty bottle over to him and stood, wavering. "Gladstone," he said, tapping the table. "Amos Royce wants to talk."

He turned to leave. A sun-dried hunk of beef stood his way, blocking the door. Lionel squinted. The bouncer put a hand on his bad shoulder, squeezing it. "We don't like no zombies 'round here," the man said.

"I'm going," he said, and tried to push past the man. Someone picked up a bottle and smashed it across his head. Lionel groaned.

Well, at least he was drunk!


	44. ARC

"Who is this guy," Amos muttered, staring at the mild-mannered young man sitting in ARC headquarters.

"Well―" Jesse began.

Avery interrupted. "He's a Paramount trooper, Amos."

"Celia says his name is Wade," Jesse said, glaring at Avery. "That he was a member of Sigma, who apprehended her and Lionel, and made her lead them to Stockton. She and Lionel obviously got away, but Sigma took all the rest to Detroit."

"D2S orders," Wade said.

"What?" Amos asked.

"D2S orders. Detain, Ship, Sort."

Amos fixed him with a glare. "No speaking until you are spoken to, Mr. Wade." Wade nodded, and sat patiently.

"And _why_ is he here?" Jesse said, anticipating the question. "Wade is looking for some artifact for that cult leader down in Detroit."

"Jesse," Amos said, "thank you for your information. Please go home and check up on Celia."

"Whaaaaat?" Jesse asked, his hands on his hips. He mock-pouted.

_"Jesse!"_ Amos turned to him. "Imagine for a moment that you've just learned that everyone at Ma's farm was taken away."

"I ain't a damn _babysitter,"_ Jesse griped, and slammed the door as he left.

"Don't swear!" Amos called after him. He turned to Wade. "Just what is going on here?" he asked, his voice hard.

"Like the boy says," Wade answered. "I'm looking for a piece of metal, about so big, for the High Ferrule in Detroit."

"You're an awful long way from there," Amos drawled. "This thing is that important?"

Wade shrugged. "The High Ferrule has plans for it."

"You know those plans?"

"Yes," was the succinct answer.

Amos chuckled. "Don't suppose you'd share them."

"No."

"Avery," Amos said, and pulled off his jacket. "Take this guy to the cell, but be nice. He's gonna be here for a while, until we figure this out."

Amos sat down behind his desk, and rubbed his face with both hands. He didn't regret getting the girl out of St. James, but there was something big going on with her. It was more complex than he or ARC could probably handle. Even if he wanted to help, he wouldn't know where to begin.

Ignoring all the drama with Lilian and Lionel on the barge, he knew she was remarkable enough. Not your typical wastelander; she seemed to honestly lack vital information about dangers and the people of the post-apocalyptic world. He supposed that was why she traveled with a ghoul, despite the strange looks people gave her. Neither one of the two had volunteered much information about their past, beyond the location of Stockton.

Amos didn't like it, though. Given how beaten she'd been, and the way Lilian tore into her, added to how the ghoul acted with the girl after the fight, he suspected there was more going on than anyone would admit to. Excepting Lilian, who'd made it quite clear that the girl had seduced Lionel away from her, with her innocent eyes and bimbo flair. Amos rolled his eyes. Lionel wasn't saying much about it. Probably knew better, since he'd smacked Lilian pretty hard. Amos didn't like that either, and had threatened him with a larding needle. He grinned grimly at the thought. He knew better than to pry. Jesse would worm it out of the girl, eventually.

Avery returned, and flopped himself down into the chair at his own desk. "You want to hear my thoughts?" he asked, putting his feet up.

"Shoot."

"Wade says that Lionel brought the soldiers to that town, but that could be a bald-faced lie," he said. "Celia told Jesse, and he believes her, that she was the one who brought the soldiers. Given that the two of them are so close, I wonder who's really to blame?"

"Celia doesn't lie well," Amos said. "She's so terrible at it, a child could tell. Not to mention, Lionel hasn't said squat about the soldiers beyond the bare bones story, and I don't think he'd let her take the blame if he was really at fault."

Avery nodded, and tossed a pencil into the air. "Lionel's pretty trustworthy, so far. Kind of slow, but reliable."

"Well, either way, after this Sigma group came to the town, Lionel lost his arm and they fled the area." Amos sighed and brushed his hair back. "Ran to St. James, because they didn't think Paramount would follow. And Lionel brought his missus. The Swanton ghoul."

Avery made a face. "Man, you would not believe what she said about Celia, on the return trip. Jesse straight up told her to shut up or he'd show her how to shear a Delaine, using her head." He shook his head. "I can't believe a girl that young would willingly run off with a ghoul, though."

"Stranger beds have been made, Avery," Amos said. "If Paramount is still looking for her, she's dangerous to the farm, to us, and to Gladstone in general. We might not have the resources to deal with her."

Avery was quiet for a moment. "Why would Paramount be looking for a piece of metal?"

"Some old tech, maybe, or a religious thing. You know how they get about that High Ferrule." Avery and Amos were distinctly aware of the Paramount forces that occasionally ran along Green Bay, because their jobs sometimes took them that far. Every one that had been met, was unyielding and well-equipped. Sometimes entire towns would go missing, just like Stockton, and everyone knew who had done it. No one could withstand a full-on Paramount assault.

Amos looked up at the ceiling. "Lionel's still out, right?"

"Yeah," Avery said.

"If he finds Landis, we'd better make the coot take the girl off, away from Lionel."

"What, you think he's gonna go feral, or something?"

"No. Not right now, anyway. He's not very smart, though, to show up in St. James, looking like a pimp with a smoothskin hooker." Amos shook his head at the thought.

"I don't think he's very smart, either," Avery said. He rifled through some paperwork on his desk. "What are we gonna do with him?"

"After the girl is gone, Jesse will be freed up," Amos said. "Ma thinks he can lure Celia away from Lionel, and I agree with her."

Avery snorted. "Honestly."

"Don't knock it," Amos said. "They're young, yet. At any rate, we can forgive Lionel his debt, and let him go."

"Didn't he assault Jesse, though?"

"Jesse saved his life, on the barge," Amos said. He laughed a little. "And Jesse knows full well how strong Lionel is. He won't do anything stupid, again."

"How long are we holding this Wade fellow?" Avery asked, looking doubtfully at the back of the building.

"As long as we know where the girl is," Amos said, and picked up a stack of paperwork to go through.


	45. Ain't Mommas

Jesse went to the farm, as directed, kicking the broken fence by the gate to unlatch it. As he approached the house, torn up but not tumbling, he distinctly heard loud sobbing and moved faster.

"Jesse," Cathy said, opening the door. "She's pretty upset. Should probably leave this one to Ma."

He shrugged. "I got orders," he said. He pushed the door to Ma's room open and stepped in.

Celia had flung herself down on the bed and and was crying with her hands under her face. Ma was sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing her back and talking quietly. Jesse leaned on the wall and watched.

"It's not your fault," Ma said, patiently. "There are bad men all over the wastes, honey."

"I want _Lionel!"_ she cried. "I want to go _home!"_

"Home is where the heart is," Ma said. "Where is your heart, Celia?" The sobbing all but stopped. "Your heart is here, with us," Ma said. "Where you are."

Celia grew quiet. Ma looked up at Jesse, with a question in her eyes. He mouthed, _"Amos,"_ and she nodded. She motioned him over to the bed.

"Celia," she said, "I've got food on. Jesse is here; if you need anything, you ask him, okay?"

Celia didn't say anything, but Ma left anyway. Jesse flopped down onto the bed, leaning back on the headboard, with his arms behind his head. For a moment, he watched her breathing, since he couldn't see her face under the tangle of brassy curls.

"What ya thinking?" he asked, and stretched out his legs, crossing them.

She made a muffled noise.

"Eh?" he said, and put a hand to his ear. "What's that? I can't hear you over all that hair."

She shook her head. Jesse grinned to himself.

"I guess I'll go get the shears, then, if I'm ever gonna be able understand you," he said, and sat up.

A hand came out and pushed back a knot of hair over her ear, and she looked up at him with a bloodshot eye. "No," she said, hoarsely.

"If you sit up and talk proper-like, I promise I won't," he said, his hand over his heart.

Slowly, Celia pulled herself up off the bed, and sat, dejectedly, facing him. She glanced at him.

"That's better," he said.

She sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "They're all gone," she said. "Everyone I ever knew."

Jesse nodded. "I haven't got anyone left, either," he said.

"You didn't doom your people to _death,_ though," she moaned, and flipped her hair forward into her face, covering it, crying into her hands again.

"When Amos found me, I was living on the streets," Jesse said. "Stealing, breaking shit, being a general nuisance. Before that, I lived with my mom and dad in a shack in Spalding." She slowed a bit. "Anyway," he continued, "I left home after my dad died. Some insanely old guy came by and offered to buy me off my mom." Jesse frowned, and remembered. "I seen the look in his eyes, before. Hadn't seen the one in my mom's." He flopped backwards onto the bed. "Mommas selling their babies, they _ain't_ mommas."

She'd stopped, and was probably watching him through the tangles. Jesse kept his eyes on the spot where hers would have been, if he could see them. He laid there, thinking about the day that he'd run away. He fully believed his mom would have sold him, and probably would have gone off and drank away every last cap.

Dust floated through the air, catching the lone stream of light from the grimy window. He remembered when Amos had dragged him out of a dumpster, and dragged him kicking and screaming, back to the farm. Ma had taken one look at him, thrown him into the sheep tub, and scrubbed until the water ran red. He grinned. At least there had been enough food to fill his belly, after!

"My mom's dead," she said, monotone. "Never knew my dad."

"Well, then," Jesse said, scratching his nose. "You ain't got too much to hold onto, already."

She sputtered. "I want Lionel," she said.

Jesse said the first thing that came to mind. _"Why?"_ He sat up again. "He's just some grumpy old gimp with a habit of beating on ladies."

Celia slapped him in the stomach. "You shut up!" she said.

"Ow-how!" he moaned, doubling up. "Sheesh, lay off. I'm saying the truth. He popped Lilian one!"

"It's _not_ a habit!" she said, angrily.

"How you do _know?"_ he asked her. "You said yourself, you've only known him for, like, ten months." He rubbed his stomach.

She stared at him through her hair. "You're right," she said. "I don't know. But that's not who he is."

"Alright, if you say so," Jesse said. "You tell me who he is."

She paused for a moment. "He's strong," she said, "and brave. He lost his arm when we were trying to escape the soldiers at On-the-Bay." She drew her legs up to her chest. "I was stupid, and didn't shoot Wade when I ought to have."

Jesse agreed, but didn't voice it.

"He's grumpy, because he's got to be one hundred and fifty years old, at least," she went on, "and because he's a ghoul, and no one likes ghouls."

"So why do you like him, so much?" Jesse asked her, annoyed. He didn't like ghouls, but this was a whole different thing altogether. She didn't seem to realize what was implied between the two of them.

She wiped her nose. "No one likes me but _him,_ anymore."

Jesse beamed a winning smile at her. "I like you," he said. "Well, when you aren't chucking apples at me, or ganging up on me with Cathy."

She gave a little sharp, short laugh.

"It's not just me. Ma and Cathy like ya. I'm pretty sure Amos and Avery think you're alright." He grinned. "I dunno about the other little shits running around here."

"I guess," she said.

"If you're so desperate for someone to like you, you don't gotta look far, is all I'm saying." He flicked a finger at her hair. "If you can see them through this mess, anyway."

She laughed again, but it was more relieved than anything. "Okay," she said. "I'm okay."

"Good, I was running out of one-liners," he said, and pantomimed a "whew" noise. She swatted at him again, and he ducked.

* * *

Dragging his leg behind him, Lionel muttered curses under his breath. Times like this, he really missed that extra fist to throw in a bar fight. It hadn't gone as planned but he was limping away, at least. He kept going. Didn't need to lose any more toes, or the leg it was attached to.

_Might as well go find a razorback and let myself get eaten,_ he thought.

Landis was following him, about a half hour behind. He'd ignored him for the first two days, noticing him cresting a hill in the distance behind him, moving just as slow as he was. Lionel was worn out. He limped to a crumbling building off the Hi-Highway and sat down on a pile of debris, eyeing his leg.

Sometimes, he reflected, it was good to be a ghoul. The amount of damage he'd received lately would have been enough to kill a normal person, or at least reduce them to a coma. He stretched out on the rubble, and felt his back muscles moving against the stones, the wrong way against his bones. ((Damn, he thought. ((That can't be good.

He put his hand behind his head and stared up at the sky through the collapsed roof. It had felt good to be in an old-fashioned barroom brawl again, he wouldn't lie. Made him feel real good about himself, getting the better of some other lunkheads who wanted to kick his ass. He grinned a little.

The sky was clear tonight. Good camping weather. He started thinking about camping along Lake Michigan, curled up under the same sky with some pretty little thing. But not actually _sleeping,_ of course. What was the name of that girl from Detroit, the one who'd stolen his ship in a bottle off the dresser in his houseboat? Heather? He felt the gearshift moving in his head.

The grin disappeared from his face. He closed his eyes, willing the memories away. A rock had worked itself in between two muscles in his back. He heard footsteps echoing. _Gimme a fucking break,_ he thought.

"You still alive, rotgut?" Landis asked.

Lionel opened his eyes. "You could call it that," he grumbled.

Landis grunted. "Hitting the sack?"

"Ain't moving, am I?"

Landis dropped his sack and walked around, gathering up and dropping a bundle of wood onto the floor. Lionel sat up and picked the rock out of the back of his shirt. After a moment, a fire was going, and Landis warmed his hands next to it.

"Don't think you'll last long on that," Landis said, after a time.

Lionel shrugged. "Had worse."

Landis squinted at him. "I seen. How'd you lose the arm?"

Your stupid daughter, he thought to himself, the memory taunting him. "Bad break," he said, aloud.

"Huh," Landis pulled out a beer, handed it to Lionel. "What's your name?"

"Lionel," he said, trying to figure out how to open the beer. Hurt too much to hold it between his knees. He set it down.

Landis' sleepy-eyed look vanished, replaced by suspicion. "Lionel," he said.

"Don't wear it out," Lionel said, wearily.

Landis looked at him dubiously, took a long drink. "Not Meisburg?"

He sighed and laid back down on the ground. "You Landises are going to be the death of me," he said.

Landis reached over and uncapped the beer. "Here," he said.

"Ugh," Lionel said, when he'd managed to get back up. "Think your shit is skunked."

"Better than no shit 'tall," Landis said, and drank up.

The two stared each other down for a good long while. "So," Landis said, "my girl found you?"

"She did." Lionel stared at the fire. The glare bothered his eyes. "Told me about Joey's journals, about her family."

"I hope she's smarter than all the Landises before her," he said, thoughtfully.

Lionel couldn't help himself, but burst out laughing. When he had control again, he said, "She's nearly as much trouble as Joey was."

"The curse of the family line," Landis toasted, holding out a beer to the air. "Guess the Vault finally crapped out."

"Some of them stayed in," Lionel said.

"So why's she so far north?"

"Traveling," Lionel said.

"The town is near Grayling, huh?"

Lionel nodded.

"That where you met her?" Landis eyed him, skeptically.

"Yeah." He looked down at his leg.

"Huh." Landis put the empty bottle onto the ground. "Guess you wouldn't tell me why my kid is traveling with a melt-faced zombie?"

Lionel rolled his eyes and didn't answer.

"Aw, I hurt your feelings?" Landis chuckled. "I don't _have_ to like your kind. I've been to Detroit."

This time, Lionel stared the man down. "I don't _have_ to like you either, you wrinkled old nutsack."

Landis laughed, coolly. "You're good sport," he said. "I'll come with you to Gladstone."

Later, when Lionel was actually able to sleep, he thought that Landis was very much like Celia, in their curiosity. The only difference between them was that Landis had satisfied his.


	46. Ain't Your Dad

"Jesse!" Celia yelled, walking through the carefully tended rows of apple trees. "Jesse?"

"Shh!" came a voice from one of the trees. _"Shush!"_

"Jesse," she said, looking up at him in the tree. "You're supposed to be helping in the garden."

"Chick, I am a _wild Injun,"_ he said. She could see he'd painted himself up with mud, lines across his face, and was wearing shorts and a bandoleer. Dried out leaves were stuck into a band on his head. "Wild Injuns don't do no _gardening."_

She sighed, and turned away. "Okay," she said, sadly.

"Whoa, what?" He jumped down from the tree. "What's up?"

Since her discussion with him, and a talk with Amos about Wade, Jesse had been paying closer attention to her. She wasn't sure she liked his new, clingy attitude. Sometimes, though, it could be useful.

"Nothing," she said, and turned to go.

"S'not nothing," he said, and put a hand on her shoulder. "What's got you upset?"

_"Nothing!"_ she said, heatedly, moving away from him.

He followed her up to the house, bugging her the whole way. When she reached the door, she said, "Sorry, Jesse."

_"There_ you _are!"_ Ma belted out, from the kitchen.

"Oh you rotten little rat fink _bi_―Owww!" Ma stomped out and grabbed him by an arm, twisting it.

"Don't you _dare_ finish that sentence, Jesse Sellers Royce!" Ma said, angrily.

"I'll get you for this one, Celia!" he hollered, struggling against Ma. "You'll get a trick, too!"

"I'm rather partial to the one with sheep dung!" she called out after him, as Ma dragged him off. That incident had been when Jesse fouled up the hayloft with sheep dung, and earned himself a good upbraiding for ruining perfectly good hay.

She walked down to the gate, and along the fence. Amos had told her that morning to expect Cameron Landis to show up at some point, and she'd kept busy with work, trying not to think about it. She really didn't know how she felt.

Other than a traitor, turning on Jesse for Ma. Ma was highly amused by the way Jesse followed her around the farm. She likened him to a lost little lamb when Celia wasn't around. Celia was embarrassed by it. Jesse was younger than her, and quite often dumber than her. She didn't see why he liked her so much.

She wondered if she would see Lionel. He was supposed to have gone out and gotten the man. Celia missed him even more than usual, today, because she'd heard other people talking about him.

She hadn't meant to eavesdrop. She'd been hoeing the garden and Avery and Amos had come around the corner of the house, talking about him.

"Maybe we could just keep him around for scaring people," Avery said, laughing. "He ain't exactly a good talker."

"Well, I'm not gonna argue," Amos replied, "Lionel is scary enough without talk―" He stopped and smiled at Celia, who'd shook her head and gone back to hoeing.

Then they'd scuttled off into the house and she wondered why everyone was leery about talking about him around her. Jesse was the only one who talked about any ghoul in front of her, and it was usually a horror story where he shot one or two feral ghouls. She didn't like to listen to those stories.

She sat down outside the fence and kicked at the ground, before curling her legs underneath her. Ma had made her put on a dress after hoeing the garden. She didn't like it.

The sounds of Gladstone drifted across the air to her, bringing the soft grunting of the Delaines, an inconsistent humming, and the grinding of the mill. She closed her eyes and leaned back on the fence post. It was very warm. She dozed off.

Then it was cold―_so cold!_ Suddenly she was wet and freezing, and Jesse was banging two pails together over her head. She shrieked and stood up.

"Trick for _trick,_ chick!" he yelled, and laughed a whoop across the yard, running away.

Amos hollered out from behind her, made her jump. _"JESSE!"_ He vaulted the fence and took off running, a lot faster than she expected he could run. She watched, somewhat amused but mostly annoyed. She squeezed some of the water out of her hair, muttering. Now she was a wet mess of pink cotton and dripping hair.

"Celia?" a voice came from behind her. She turned and froze, then slowly let go of her hair.

"You look just like Barbara," Cameron Landis said.

She opened her mouth, but no words came out. He looked older than she expected, but he was a wizened, browner, more broad version of Ed. Maybe that was the wasteland, she thought. All the sun.

"I am Cameron Landis," he said, holding a hand out. She took it, gingerly.

"I am Celia," she said.

He looked her over and released her hand. He looked out at the barn that Amos was standing near, audibly chastising Jesse for the prank. "You've come a long way," he said.

They walked along the fence for a few minutes, away from Amos and Jesse. She answered his questions about Ed and her mother as best she could, and told him about how Lionel had helped them get into the military base at Stockton.

"Adventurous," he said, when she told him about Sergeant Sawyer.

"What's your story?" she asked.

He raised an eyebrow. "I couldn't come home," he said. "It was impossible."

"How come?"

Landis sighed. "Aside from the obvious mechanical issues that the Vault door was having, I got swept up by a bunch of soldiers and taken to Detroit." He cracked a knuckle. "I spent a long time down there. Years. When I came back, my Pip-Boy was gone, and the Vault wouldn't have recognized me." He shrugged. "I didn't want to give up, but―well, you've been out there. The world will eat you alive, if you aren't careful."

Celia didn't tell him about the missing Vault dwellers. She didn't want to have to admit to him that she'd been responsible for her brother being kidnapped. "What do we do, now?" she asked, mostly to fill the silence.

"I can't take you with me, Celia," he said. "You're too damn pretty for where I have to go."

She nodded, relieved. "That's okay. I have a nice home here."

"You're a good girl," he said, and touched her wet hair. "Stay that way."

She laughed a little, nervously. "I'll try."

Landis fixed a hard stare on her and looked back up to the farm. "You tell them Royce boys that I ain't your dad, you hear?"

She started. "Why?"

"I don't know why they wanted me to take you off their hands so badly." He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, inhaling. "Maybe you're not so welcome as you think. Be careful with them."

Celia looked down and felt sick rise in her stomach. "I feel welcome, enough, I guess."

He shook his head. "People outside the Vault are always trying to get your caps, your body, or your soul," he muttered, angrily. "Which reminds me, why the hell were you traveling with that fucking rotgut ghoul?"

She stiffened. "I don't think I need to explain my actions to someone who _isn't_ my father," she said, coldly, and strode away.


	47. Monsters

"Bradley."

He stepped forward.

"Report to the Temple."

He did, striding confidently into the darkened building, eyes forward. There was nothing new to see.

Burgess had been waiting for him. Bradley knew this was untrue; he could see the shiftiness in the little man's eyes, the sweat coming down his temple. Had he been ordered to kill the liar, he would have.

Bradley walked into the bower of the High Ferrule, removed his helmet, and knelt on one knee. "Sir."

As was his custom, the High Ferrule had his Echo sitting nearby. She waited patiently for her duties. Bradley had collected this Echo from her mother, amidst the screaming incoherence of the slums. She was growing well, he thought, for such a scrawny baby. She looked at him with a smile, and shining eyes.

"Bradley!" The High Ferrule placed his hands together in delight. "I am so very _happy_ that you could come to see me."

"How could I not, sir?" he replied.

The High Ferrule laughed, cruelly. Echo laughed as well, but the feeling was less cruel. "Such wit! No matter, it may not be necessary or needed, in the future." He sighed, then. "I've a problem, Bradley."

"How may I assist you, sir?"

"To the point, as always!" The High Ferrule stood, pushing his Echo aside and moved from the glass throne. "Stand, Bradley. I will perform an exercise."

He stood, and he could just see over the High Ferrule's head.

"Now, strike me."

Bradley shook his head. "I cannot, sir."

The High Ferrule reached out and slapped Bradley across the face, growling. _"Absurdity!"_ he shrieked.

Bradley moved his head forward again, and felt the sting in his face. He did not react.

"The older conditioning is _still_ better," the High Ferrule muttered to himself. "I _must_ have that dampener!" He clenched his fist.

"If you are looking for something, perhaps I may find it, sir?"

"Hmm?" The High Ferrule turned and put his fingertips together. "Oh, yes. I forget that you have such a simple mind."

Bradley took no offense. Simple was better, quite often. Ending an argument with a gunshot, wading a river rather than looking for a bridge, obeying an order without thinking. These were simple.

"Your subordinate, Wade," the High Ferrule said. "I sent him to collect a mate for this," he showed Bradley the metal piece, "about three months ago." He sighed, painfully. "I'm afraid I must order him back to the Temple for punishment."

Bradley hung his head in shame. "My training has failed you, sir."

"I doubt it was your training," the High Ferrule said, critically. "Rather, his conditioning failed him, and I offered him a chance to live through the day."

Bradley was aware of this problem with Wade, though he'd assumed that Wade had been reconditioned, or executed as non-viable. He was perplexed by this development. "If you permit, sir, I will find him."

"I _know_ you will," the High Ferrule said. "You will find the metal piece, and Wade."

"Yes, sir," Bradley said, and excused himself.

It would be simple, he thought, if Wade had not already died in the wastes. Given Wade's terrible gun skills, he doubted the young man had made it very far. His prompt crackled to life, showing him the information that he desired to know.

* * *

Jesse sat with Celia around a campfire. He'd been edging closer to her for a while, but she'd noticed and was glaring at him rather meanly. He sighed, and stood up abruptly.

_"I declare this land free from the Ma-Menace!"_ he hollered into the trees. The night sky watched on silently, and Celia shook her head at him.

"What are you doing?" she said. "You'll get us in trouble."

"Chick, I _love_ me some trouble," he said, laughing. "Didn't you know?"

She looked away and ignored him. Jesse raised an eyebrow and picked a branch off the nearest bush. Shuffling on his knees, he moved up to her and offered it out. "C'mon, Celia, forgive me?"

"I don't think I want to," she said, but her voice was teasing. He smiled. Hook, line, just need the sinker.

"Well, if you aren't gonna forgive me, I'll have to beg," he said, and rolled onto the ground under her feet, putting his hands together and made a whimpering noise.

"Stop it, Jesse," she said. "I'm not in the mood for this." She sighed.

"Okay," he said, lying there, and stretched out, then ran a hand up her leg and tickled her behind the knee.

She kicked him softly in the side and moved away from him. "You're a creep, Jesse."

He sighed to himself. Man, this was harder than he thought. Ma wanted him to make googly eyes at her, but she wasn't swooning like Ma expected. He stared up at the sky, the stars obscured by the clouds.

Suddenly, he sat up, and looked at her. "I'm a creep?" he said. "How about some creepy stories?"

"Sure, whatever," she said, staring into the fire with her chin in her hand.

He spun a tale about a woman who heard scraping noises in the dark, and was eventually murdered in her sleep by a killer hiding under her bed.

"Not creepy," Celia said. "Just sick. And anti-climatic. Who the heck hides under a bed?"

"Little kids," he said. "And people with _murderous intent."_

She shook her head. "Try again."

Jesse thought for a moment. "How about Sasquatch?"

"...What?"

"Long time ago, when people could walk the world without fear in their hearts, there were still monsters in the dark," he said, spookily, kicking some dirt onto the fire to make it darker. He ducked into the dark of the trees around them. "In the depths of the wilderness, deep, deep in the trees and valleys of Michigan, a creature walked along on two feet, like a man. But it _wasn't a man."_

Celia looked up at the sky. He waited a moment, moving around behind her, and jumped out at her, roaring like a large animal might. She shrieked and punched him in the stomach.

"Ahh!" he said, hissing. "Dammit, Celia!"

_"What?!"_ she threw her head up. "You shouldn't jump out at people!"

"Did it scare you?" he asked, teasingly.

"No," she said, defensively, and tossed a tree branch at him.

_"Ow!"_ He didn't duck in time. "You're as bad as that damn mush-face!"

_"Don't call him that!"_ she yelled, and thumped him on the chest with a fist.

"Oh that is _it,_ chick!" Jesse moved closer, and held her shoulders tightly. "Don't you _hit_ me!"

She looked up at him with big, scared eyes, and he tried to move in for a kiss. _Bad idea, though,_ he thought later. She kneed him in the crotch and he yelped in pain, falling to the ground.

"Ohhhh," he moaned. "Dammit!" He looked up at her. "You just can't let go of that one, can you?"

"Why should I just _forget_ someone?" she asked, angrily. Spots of color rose in her cheeks.

"Because," he groaned, and sat up. "You're so hung up on that living corpse, and you don't even _realize_ what it means!"

"I am not _that_ stupid!" she shrieked. "I have ears! I can hear what people say about _him,_ about _me!"_

Jesse took a deep breath and looked into her eyes. She was angry, but there was a layer of hurt under them that he could tell needed to be aired. "What're you gonna do when he whops you like he did Lilian?" he asked, fiercely. "Or when he goes feral on you, and tries to _eat_ you?"

She only glared at him. "Lionel would not do that," she said, with fire in her eyes, "and he's not going feral any time soon."

"You're delusional," he said. "It's a goddamn death sentence, and you never know when it's gonna hit you." Celia reached out for the tree limb again, but he jumped up and stopped her, holding her wrist. "I'm not _kidding,_ Celia!"

She looked to his hand on her wrist, and paled. "Let me go," she whispered, a frantic tone in her voice.

Jesse dropped her wrist. "You need to understand that there are _real_ monsters out there," he said, quite seriously.

"I know there are monsters," she said, in a small voice. The fire cracked a log and sparks rose into the dark sky.

"Why you act like this, I don't know," he told her. "Like the world is one big fairy tale, waiting for you to read it."

"I like fairy tales," she said, her voice wobbling with emotion. "They're easy to remember."

The fire dimmed. Jesse looked to it, and rubbed his eye. "Yeah, but they all end _real_ badly," he said.

When he looked back, she was gone. He sighed.

"Well, I tried, Ma," he said, and kicked more dirt on the fire.


	48. Caged Lion

Celia was gone. After her talk with Landis, and a spat with Jesse that was relayed in pieces to Lionel, she'd disappeared. The Royces were of the opinion that she'd gone with Landis, off into the wastes. Landis had left at almost the same time, ducking out after dinner.

Lionel didn't think she would have gone off with a stranger like that, but he didn't know what to think. He didn't think she would kick Jesse in the balls, either. It made him grin, though. _That little shit,_ he thought. _Serves him right._

In the three months they'd been in Gladstone, he had cleared his debt. Amos ignored that he couldn't have possibly worked off that many caps, and released him from employment. Lionel knew he was just waiting to get rid of him, one way or the other. Amos and Avery gave him enough caps to get to Toskey and a day's head start before releasing Wade. Lionel was ready for the soldier, if he needed to be, but he doubted he was a target.

He hoped Celia hadn't gone home to Stockton.

Lionel rode the barge to St. James, and didn't disembark. The red sky, filled with the bloody rays of the apocalyptic sun, was troubling. He thought about storms and his houseboat, so many years ago. Maybe he'd get another boat, sail around Lake Michigan. Celia wouldn't want to come with him, because of her motion sickness.

He kicked himself. He had to forget her.

After arriving at Toskey, he plodded back through the bogs, the flies, the ants. By himself, the journey was quiet, lonely, and a lot simpler. He tried to clear his mind. He'd go to his shack, grab everything of value and sell it. He'd move out to the shore, and fix and sell junk until he had enough caps to get the hell out of Michigan. The time seemed right.

It took him a few days longer than it ought to have. He was slow. Lionel felt every bit one hundred and fifty five years old. Hell, had it really been that long? He sighed.

He didn't stop for anything, just walked right to his shack and unlocked the door. He picked through the electronics, trying to figure out what he could sell for a decent profit. The radio hummed gently behind him, and he turned it off after one song. The shack didn't feel much like home, anymore, even with the radio on.

He must have dozed off. He jerked upright, drowsy, at a sound on the roof. He heard drumming sounds, like someone kicking their feet against the metal wall.

_Oh, goddamn that girl!_

He debated on what to do. No one knew he was inside the shack. He'd locked the door when they left, so she should expect it to still be locked. He could try to stick it out until she left. It was a low thing to do, hiding from her, but he didn't know if he could stand to be truly alone with her again. _Too much hurt,_ he thought. _Just because I'm used to pain, doesn't mean I want more._

The drumming stopped after a few minutes, and a scraping noise echoed through the shack. He went to the door, ready to lock it.

"I've been looking for you," Wade said, from the roof. Lionel froze

"I don't have that thing!" Celia yelled. "It was in Lionel's pack, and he lost it when he fell off the barge into the lake!"

"You're still a terrible liar," Wade said. "Let's try this again."

There was a scuffling sound and a loud banging noise, and a yelp from Celia, then a thud outside the door of the shack. Lionel jerked opened the door and scanned the situation, then strode out and grabbed Wade around the neck in a choke hold.

_"I am fairly sick of this shit,"_ he roared, tightening his arm around the man's neck. Wade kicked out, struggling. Lionel wasn't about to let him go. He looked at the girl.

Celia was lying spread eagle, on the ground in front of them. She wasn't moving. He felt all the frustration change to rage, all the things he should have said echoing in his head. He felt powerful again, and crushed the young man's neck with his arm.

Ten minutes passed. Wade stopped struggling after a few seconds, went limp, and was definitely dead after a minute, but Lionel held him until he could feel the tendons in his arm begin to strain.

It had been almost eleven years since Lionel had killed a man. That mark of pride was gone, now.

He dropped the man, and looked at Celia again. Relief flooded into him when he saw her breathing, the rise and fall of her stomach. Part of him wished she was dead, but that part was quickly smashed down by the rest of him. _Don't be an idiot,_ he told himself. _She's plenty dumb for both of us._

He exhaled, and dragged the young man's body out of the rocks, pulling it until he reached the ant mounds. He left the body there, and tramped back up to the hideaway.

Were you supposed to move someone who'd fallen? He couldn't remember. He'd fallen many times, got up, limped away. But he was a ghoul. He was tougher than her.

Lionel sat back on his heels and pushed a bit of hair out of her face. _Really?_ Old gruff Lionel, being tender, seemed ridiculous. He wondered if that was how people had seen him when he was with Lilian, like a lion at the zoo. Teeth and claws, until mated.

Celia's wide brown face was peaceful. Inside, he was fighting his heartbeat. Fast and hard, he felt fear and anger. _Fear_ for her, not understanding why it was bad for her to be around him. For her not knowing what feral ghouls were like, for not believing he was dangerous. And _anger,_ because it had to be like that, and he couldn't do a damn thing about it.

This shit-for-brains Vault dweller had treated him like some kind of hero, idolizing him. He remembered the shack at On-the-Bay, when she'd held his hand and was so... _so soft._ That was when it had started, he thought. All her concern for his arm, and when Dr. Boyer had cut it off and she'd leaned _over_ him―

Lionel groaned to himself, stood up, and punched the rock wall. His knuckles popped and cracked. This pain was real, but he couldn't feel it very well.

He looked back at her. This kind of drama should be for some other person, some kid her own age. Like Jesse Royce. Not that he thought the little shit deserved her, but he sure as hell didn't. She acted like this world wasn't going to kill her. Like it wouldn't kill everyone, eventually. The only people this world was suited for were _ghouls,_ like him.

Celia stirred. He moved behind her, and waited, putting on his best stoic face. She slowly moved her arms and legs, then sat up with a push.

She brushed her hair out of her eyes, and winced audibly. "I fell," she mumbled. She looked around and jerked when she caught him standing there, out of the corner of her eye. For a moment she held his gaze, then turned forward and tried to stand up.

"What―" she stopped and rubbed her back, wincing. "Wade?"

"Gone," he said, roughly.

_"Where?"_ she whispered, fearfully.

"Dead."

She exhaled slowly, and held her back as she stood. With a hunched back and hitch in her step, she moved to the shack, and opened the door.


	49. I Love You

Lionel followed, watching her silently. They hadn't spoken since he'd dropped her off at the Royce farm. After Amos' mother heard the story, she'd given Lionel a long and hard stare, and banned him from setting foot on her land. He'd heard the words, understood them, and walked away, numbly.

Celia went to the floor and pulled a bag from under the bed. She sat down on the bed, and took a piece of metal shaped like an L-beam from the bag. He remembered finding it, when Mayer had threatened him on the lake bed. She held it in her hand and examined it.

"Everyone is gone," she said, hoarsely. "My parents, my brother, Lilian, Calhoun..." She gave him a piercing look. "And you."

"Must be a ghost, then," he said.

"When I was a kid, all I wanted was to be left alone," she went on, playing with the metal beam. "Now, I am."

"Doesn't make me feel better, I'm still standing here," Lionel said, gruffly. "Or don't I count, anymore."

She curled her lip and threw the metal beam at him. _"You gave me away!"_

It bounced off the wall, beside him. "I had to," he muttered.

Celia stood, clenching her fists. "We could have kept moving, after St. James. But you all thought I should meet my father."

"I take it you felt the same as I did," he remarked, dryly.

"He didn't care, _either!"_ She pointed at Lionel, and he focused on that finger.

"I _do_ care, Celia," he growled. "I am not some goddamn superhero, saving your ass every time you need it."

"No," she said, turning to the bed and sweeping the bag onto the floor. She sat down. "No, you're just a ghoul."

Lionel was stunned. "You trying to take on that nasty attitude of your old man?" he asked, moving closer. "That isn't who you are." He was angry now. Innocent, dumb Celia had grown up when he left her at the farm. He didn't like what she'd turned into.

"Why not?" she muttered. "If being mean got you through a hundred and fifty years of this shit, it can get me through it, too."

He stared her down. "You aren't even one-fifth of that," he said, lowering his voice. "Maybe not even one-tenth. Long time to be a bigot."

"Here's to nineteen more years of it!" she laughed, holding up an imaginary toast.

"Stop," he said, moving even closer. "You're being foolish."

Celia snorted. "Well," she said, "at least I'm still as _stupid_ as I was, before."

He wished he could take back every time he'd ever called her stupid. Who was he to talk like that? "The wasteland wasn't made for innocents," he said, stiffly. "Stupidity gets you killed."

"I'm here, though." She stared at her hands in her lap, like they weren't real. "I can't hide in the tunnels of the Vault, anymore."

"No," he muttered, "but pretending to be tougher than what you are only works if you're already tough."

"Like you?" She laughed and wiped her nose, not looking up.

"I'm only as tough as the people around me," he answered, and turned to the side, looking away. "Lilian was a cold bitch, in the end. You learn to meet that kind of toughness, and beat it."

"Must be a teddy bear, right now," she joked. "I'm about as tough as a wet piece of paper."

He wanted to laugh with her, tell her it would be okay. He couldn't make the words work, in his head. "Good," he grunted. "Back to normal."

He watched her bite her lip out of the corner of his eye. He turned around. She looked up at him, confused. _Oh, _fuck_ me,_ he thought. _Don't―_

"Was Lilian right?" she asked, her brown eyes on his. _"Did_ I steal you away from her?"

He firmed himself against the emotion. "Must be back to normal," he said, "if you're believing the horse-shit she said."

"Don't avoid it," she said, stubbornly. "Don't lie. Everything went mad, for a while. The others acted like it was wrong, that we should be friends. I couldn't figure out why."

He shook his head. "You'd get that, even if you were a sixty-year-old. I'm a ghoul."

"No," she said, slowly, "I think it was _my_ fault."

Lionel rubbed his face. It boggled him―she did―really. He waited for her to explain.

"I think I paid too much attention to you, acted too close." She tilted her head to the side. "And you ended up getting half-drowned, and treated like a villain."

He laughed, bitterly. "I'm not a _good_ guy," he said. "Killed that soldier boy―" he stopped himself. He'd done that for _her._

"You are," she said, simply. "Despite what you may do on occasion, at heart, you are a good person."

"So now I'm a _person?"_ he asked. His head hurt. "Not two minutes ago, I was 'just a ghoul'."

"You are a person," she murmured, "who gets angry when he doesn't know what to say, and says mean things instead."

Lionel stood there, without a word, clenching his jaw. _Yeah,_ he thought,_ that pretty much sums it up._ A minute passed in silence.

"And," Celia said, "you should know that I won't stay upset, even if you get angry with me. I came back every time you chased me off, except when you had to come get me."

A sharp pain in his chest. "We're both shit on each other's heels," he grumbled.

She smiled, happily. "Yes," she said.

He took a deep breath, exhaled. Worked that gearshift in his brain. "How did you know?" he asked, his voice not wanting to leave his throat. He couldn't admit to it. He could get as close to the subject as possible, though.

Celia put her fingertips together and looked over them. "I was upset, and Jesse kept asking me why I liked you, and it all suddenly made sense."

_Figures,_ he told himself. _She grew up, finally, and realized I gave her up because I didn't want to_―he still couldn't admit it. He could tell Lilian, but not her. He clenched his fist.

"Home is where the heart is," she said, softly. "Where is your heart, Lionel?"

"You're driving me _crazy,_ kid!" he yelled, throwing up his hand. "Showing up here, when you should be back where you're _safe―"_

"I'm _safe_ with _you,"_ she said, firmly.

"You're just _trouble_ for me," he grunted.

"I'm trouble for _everyone,"_ she snapped, and stood up, facing him. "Everyone treats me like a bothersome child, only capable of throwing tantrums, getting into jams, and making work! And when I _try_ to act like an adult, no one lets me!" She tensed.

"You want me to give you a chance?" he asked. "I gave you a chance when we first met, and I told you to stay in that goddamn Vault! You―"

"So I'm better off _dead!?"_ she shrilled. "I went back there! It's full of _burned corpses and smoke!"_ She started crying, wiped her face. _"Everyone―"_

Lionel moved to her, and before he could think about it, crushed her to him in a hug. She sobbed, and worked her fingers into his chest, painfully. "This is why you can't pull off the tough guy act," he rumbled. "You care too _damn_ much."

"I don't want to," she moaned.

"Yeah, I don't want to, either," he said. He ran his ragged hand over her hair. His heart hurt.

Celia pushed him away, and stood lamely in front of him. "I'm going to leave," she said, and wrung her hands. "I'll go away, so I'm not trouble."

"Don't have to," he said, forcing himself to say it. "I'm tough," he jabbed his chest. "I can handle your trouble. I've done it before."

She shook her head. "You don't want it."

"Is that really what you think?" he asked.

"I'm going to Detroit," she stated, flatly. "You'll end up dead. I can't have that on my conscience."

Lionel reached out and lifted her chin, staring into her brown doe eyes. "Everybody dies, Celia," he said, and released her.

"I know," she said, and wiped away the rest of her tears.

"Why would you go there, anyway," he said. "You were terrified of Sigma, before."

"Wade wanted that thing," she pointed at the metal beam. "It must be important, if he was willing to track me all over creation to get it."

He pushed her hand down. "You didn't really answer that," he said. "The only reason we left in the first place was because you were convinced that tall fucker was up to something."

"I'm not afraid of him," she lied.

"You _are,_ and you should be," he said, harshly. "It was obvious what he wanted."

"I can handle it," Celia said, jutting out her chin, but she wobbled.

"Like you handled it, _last_ time? Banging your head off the wall, freaking out?" Lionel looked at her critically.

"What do you want from me?" she asked, irritably.

"Not what Mayer wanted," he said. "But a little concern for personal safety would be nice."

She flushed red. He moved away, picked up the metal beam, and handled it. If it wasn't so rusted, he might be able to tell what it was.

"Lionel, I..."

He turned back to her. "What?"

"I'm not sorry we met," she mumbled.

"Me either, kid," he said, and put the metal beam onto the shelf by the fridge.

When he turned around, she wrapped her arms around him, buried her face in his shirt, and squeezed. He patted her head, gently. "Good thing it's not contagious," he joked.

"I wouldn't care," she declared, muffled. "I _love_ you, Lionel."

That was a knife right through his heart. He grimaced at the pain. "Kid," he said, "you really _do_ drive me crazy."


	50. Lost Time

Bradley's prompt lit up like the Temple lights, as he was marching silently up I-75. At a junction, he stopped and examined it, then turned toward Grayling.

The signal was strong, and he was pleased. The High Ferrule had not entrusted the wrong person. He would find the ISD and return it to Detroit. He considered that he might receive accolades, but didn't revel in the idea. Idle praise, he thought, for doing a job that should have been completed by his subordinate.

He still felt that Wade's training had been incomplete, due to his own incompetence. Many a rookie had gone out on the Green Bay run with Sigma. Never once had there been a death, or a break in the conditioning. No rookie had ever failed to find placement on another team, or had been executed. Wade was a good engineer, but a poor soldier. Bradley should have taught him better. He might not have englished his conditioning.

When Bradley found the man, he would have to cuff him and drag him back to Detroit. Even if Wade proved to be trouble, Bradley knew he could handle it.

His conditioning wouldn't allow him to feel any differently.

* * *

Celia woke the next morning to an ear-splitting snore, jarring her out of a sound sleep. She was used to Lionel's snoring, but not directly in her ear. Why he was beside her, she had no idea―she'd fallen asleep on the bedroll on the floor after agreeing not to leave, repeatedly.

She stuck her fingers in her ears. She felt so much better, now that the air had been cleared between them. Even the horrible things that Lilian had said were behind her now. She knew he loved her, even if he wouldn't say it aloud.

She smiled. She'd realized her feelings for Lionel were deep, but hadn't really understood his attachment to her was just as strong. Then she frowned. It must have hurt him, to leave her to the Royces. Ma had asked her where her heart was. Her heart was with Lionel.

It had become obvious to her, after Jesse's foolish attempt to kiss her, that she was being directed away from Lionel. Unlike the people in Stockton, who had been disgusted by the ghouls, but had no reason to truly discriminate, the Royces were fully against Lionel. Jesse said as much himself, that one day Lionel would go feral, and Jesse was scared of ghouls for that reason. She could see it in his eyes, when he told his stories. Amos had his own reasons, she was sure, and Ma had been so hard on Lionel, she didn't even want to think why.

Celia thought about her escape into Gladstone, how she'd had to steal to get enough money to get home. She sighed. She'd gone to the Vault, and cried her eyes out, and sealed it up permanently by cutting the wires in the hollow rock. No one needed to go back there.

She removed her fingers from her ears, and wiped her eyes. And Wade... she took Lionel's word that he was dead. Not that she didn't believe him, but when Wade had shown up on the rocks above the shack, she'd almost peed her pants in terror. She strengthened herself, now. She couldn't afford to be scared, anymore.

Lionel shifted in his sleep. Annoyed, Celia wondered why he hadn't gone to sleep on the mattress, instead of trying to cram into the corner with only enough space for her.

After the talk, he hadn't let her think about going to Detroit. He told her story after story about his life before the War, but drew the line at talking about the day the bombs fell.

"You have enough nightmares to come," he said, soberly.

Celia wiggled around to face his back, and stared at the back of his head. He was nearly squishing her into the wall. She supposed that was why he slept on the far side of the bed. She looked at his shoulder, where the sleeve of his shirt barely covered the stub. The only time she'd ever heard him complain about it was to Lilian, and she suspected that was for dramatic effect. She ran her fingers over it, gently, then grasped his shoulder and shook him.

"Lionel," she said.

He didn't respond. She pushed herself up and moved around him, then went outside to the little outhouse. On her way back, she stopped and looked over the blueberry bushes, picking a handful.

The shack door burst open, startling her into dropping the handful. Lionel stepped out with his revolver in his hand, a hard look on his face. She sighed, and picked up the berries.

"I'm not going to run away," she said, once she'd gone back inside. "And I'm not going to wet the bed, either."

Lionel had the decency to be embarrassed. "You got to give me a while," he muttered. "After Lilian."

"Well, I'm not her," Celia replied, patiently. "Would you please make breakfast?"

After they ate, she looked at the shelf. "We're going to have to do something about the food situation," she frowned.

"Let me worry about that," Lionel said.

"No, because you don't eat as often as I have to. I'm going to feed myself."

"You'll starve to death," he said flatly.

"Don't go putting me in some kind of ivory tower," she told him. "I'm not worth the effort. I'd fall out the window, anyway."

He chuckled, and ran a hand along the back of her neck, making her shiver. "Gotta learn to deal with it," he answered. He told her another story about Grand Traverse Bay.

At the end of the day, Celia was starting to feel the strain of being penned up inside the shack. "Can't I just go out and try to hunt something?" she asked, curious.

"Stop fighting about it," he grumbled.

"I'm not real good at sitting still, Lionel," she reminded him.

"You're getting on my nerves."

She laughed at that. "They _are_ exposed," she teased.

"That was mean," he said, but his eyes were smiling. "Keep it up, see where that gets you."

"I might," she laughed. "But you're _tough._ You can take it."

He sighed, painfully, and sat down on the bed. "You're really wearing me out, kid."

"You _complain_ too much," she said. "Way you're acting, what with this forced occupation..." She moved to sit beside him. "Why? Normally, we'd be out doing our own things, not annoying the snot out of one another."

Lionel closed his eyes, and she tilted her head to look at him. "Just a few days," he said. "Then we'll go."

"Go _where?"_ She put her hand through his, felt the roughness. "I didn't know you had a plan."

He breathed in deeply. "It's your plan," he replied, looking at her. "I'm only coming along to try to keep you from getting killed." He looked away.

She let go of his hand and looked at the floor, brooding. "You'd still want to go?"

"We all gotta die, sometime," he said.

"I thought we talked about that."

"I said 'we'," he smiled, looking at her. "But your optimism that you _won't_ get killed is amusing."

"Lionel!" she admonished him, and swatted at his leg.

He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her backwards, onto the bed. They laid there for a long time. He kept his arm around her stomach, hugging her tightly. "You're terrible," she said. He wouldn't let go.

"Just a few days," he said, again. The lamp flickered and dimmed in the gloom of the shack.

She wiggled herself, turning around to face him, put her arm around his side. "A few days of _what?"_ she asked.

He made a face, closed his eyes. "Making up," he said. "For lost time. Haven't had a good hug in ages."

"But didn't you and―"

"Don't," he said, warning her.

"I want to know," she said, bullheaded.

The room was suddenly darkened as the lamp bulb burnt out with a crack. Lionel swore, but let her go and climbed off of the bed. He swore again, kicking a chair in the dark. She heard him rattling the boxes on the shelf, looking for another bulb.

"Why won't you talk about it?" she asked, sitting up and looking into the darkness.

Lionel sighed, and made a frustrated noise. "If the bombs were divine retribution for our sins," he said, "I got mine."

"What?" She was confused.

It was near silent while he fiddled with the lamp. It blinked to life and Lionel chucked the old bulb outside, shutting the door with a slam. He looked angry.

"I don't understand," she said. "What sin would you have committed?"

He wouldn't face her. "Kid, it's some small wonder if you die a virgin."

She colored all the way to her toes and looked down, embarrassed. Lionel came to sit beside her, working his jaw. "That was stupid, I'm sorry," he mumbled.

"No, you're right," she said. "But I am. A virgin."

He exhaled, long and forced. "I can't help you with that," he said. "So neither one of us is missing anything."

She bit her tongue. "I'm sorry I brought it up."

He didn't reply. After a while, he got up and turned off the lamp, and they slept.


	51. Only One Day

Bradley came to the town where the Vault dwellers had been, and consulted his prompt. The signal was still strong. Through the darkness, he marched out to the tower and followed the signal across the dry lake bed. Near the ant mounds, he found Wade's body.

Bradley did not look upon this with favor. The young man's face indicated he'd died violently, his neck crushed from brute force. He went through Wade's pockets and removed the Pip-Boy from his arm. The Pip-Boy showed that Wade had tracked the Landis girl across Lake Michigan, north into the wilds where Paramount was forbidden to go.

The journal also indicated that Wade had passively allowed himself to be captured―Bradley stiffened in disappointment―and upon his release, tracked the Landis girl back to a hideout near the ant mounds.

Bradley followed the directions in Wade's Pip-Boy. He walked up the rock ledge, into the face of the wall, and through a passageway. He broke through a blind, and came into a hole inside the rocks, open to the sky above.

Bradley drew his weapon―the laser pistol he'd taken to using for Wade's sake. He advanced to a well-maintained metal shack among the bushes, crunching a light bulb under his boots. He did not bother to hide his footsteps, nor did he announce himself. He set explosive charges on the door, and backed away.

With the press of a button, the front of the shack exploded. Bradley counted to ten before moving into the dust and chaos. The Landis girl was sprawled at the back of the shack, lying on top of a chair like a rag doll. His prompt sounded an alarm, and he looked to his right to see the ghoul Lionel beside him, raising a crowbar above his head. Bradley shot him through the shoulder, incapacitating him.

The crowbar dropped and the ghoul roared at him, lashing out with a leg. Bradley hit him in the face with his gun and shot him through both knees while he was recovering. The ghoul crumpled. Bradley didn't feel it was necessary to kill him.

"You'll live," he said, without emotion, and picked his way across the room to the girl. She stirred as he approached. "Get up, Landis," Bradley said.

Sluggishly, she rose to her knees. Covered in dust and with blood streaming down her face from a broken nose, she looked up at Bradley. _"Wha?"_ she slurred, and pushed her hair out of her face.

"Get up, Landis," Bradley said, again, and aimed his pistol at the ghoul, who was trying to stand. "I don't know how you escaped the D2S orders. I will rectify that. Come with me."

She stared at him. The lamp on the table flickered on and off as the dust settled. "The metal piece," she said, her eyes unfocused.

"Yes," Bradley answered.

"Celia," the ghoul rasped.

Bradley shot him through the chest. The girl gasped and stood, trying to get past Bradley. He caught her with one hand and held her. "Get the piece, or he dies," he cautioned her.

She nodded, and pointed to the corner, her dusty face ashen. Bradley walked her to the corner. The ghoul reached out and tried to grab her ankle. She shot him a look, picked up the metal piece, and handed it to Bradley. He ignored this, and started to drag her off, stepping around the ghoul.

_"Please,"_ she said. "Take it and _let me go!"_

Bradley did not answer, but pulled her through the front of the shack, and toward the rock wall.

_"Lionel!"_ she screamed, pulling on his grip. Bradley hit her with his pistol, put her over his shoulder, and carried her away.

* * *

He didn't know how long he laid there, trapped by his own busted body. He watched the sun rise over the rock wall, climb into the sky. His cheek was broken, a lung had collapsed, his arm and legs were too weak to hold his weight.

"I only had_ one day!"_ he yelled, uselessly, into the air.

The sun began to set, and he could hear a familiar gentle clicking noise from the passage. If he'd been able to, he'd be sweating buckets.

Lionel didn't know how he might have died. If he'd had to choose he'd rather have gone out less pathetically, but ignobly, like crashing a car into a divider, or getting crushed by a steel girder. After the the wastes made him virtually indestructible, he'd chosen willful suicide rather than be taken out. Not that he had the guts to ever try.

Not like this, though. Not helpless to the elements with those _fucking_ ants crawling around, ready to drag him off to their mound and slowly dismantle him piece by piece.

And she was gone.

_Goddammit._

* * *

Days later, Celia and Bradley arrived in Detroit. She watched the insurmountable black walls rise from the highway, saw the glittering lights of the towers like enormous gray mushroom clouds against the blackened sky. She heard the loud grating and banging of the city, bleeding out into the wasteland. It seemed to stretch on forever, in all directions. With a gag in her mouth, cuffed and attached by a lead to Bradley, all she could do was cry trails of terror down the dirt on her face.

The trip had been a forced march of starvation and corrective behavior. Bradley had gagged her when she wouldn't stop screaming into the wastes, attracting all manner of dangerous attention. She was so hungry that her legs had been going out from underneath her, stumbling over the broken asphalt. Bradley had attached the lead to her because of this, and her back was covered in tiny cuts from his dragging her through the shit on the wasteland floor.

They entered the city with nary a word, and she was forced into a disinfectant bath, stripped naked and clothed in a simple gray tunic that fell to her knees. Re-bound by Bradley, and cleaned, she was marched through the streets of Detroit.

Everything was blackened by the grime of the loud industrial complexes. Smoke covered the sky, and she felt her chest tighten with the lack of oxygen. Fires burned in barrels everywhere, lighting up the streets and the people, but they were still barely visible through the ever-present smog, milling in quiet throngs.

The other soldiers gave Bradley the odd little three-fingered salute as they walked past. Celia saw one soldier stomping on the stomach of a small child. She turned her head away, breathing faster.

She walked quickly, keeping up with Bradley. He dragged her through the slums, with the still-standing buildings coated in soot, and through a market that was depressingly quiet. They came to a building that was relatively clean compared to the rest of the city, but still ruined. Floodlights lit the courtyard, illuminating a set of train tracks, dead grass, and patrolling soldiers with growling dogs. Bradley strode to the enormous entry doors, and she squinted her eyes against the lights above them.

He pulled her inside, and she had to let her eyes adjust to the dim interior. The air was clear here, much more breathable than the outside, but still musty. She was led down a hallway and nearly thrown down onto a chair in a small room.

"If I remove your bindings," Bradley said to her, "and you start to scream again, I will flay the skin from your body, starting with your _feet."_ She looked at him with wide, terrified eyes. "Do you understand?" he asked.

She nodded. He removed the gag and her cuffs. She breathed a little easier, but not by much. Bradley took a seat beside her and removed his helmet.

"You are going to meet the High Ferrule," he said, tonelessly. "You will behave, or I will compel you."

Celia closed her eyes and curled up on the chair, covering her face.

Bradley led her into a much bigger room. The ceiling was high, covered in a grid of metal, with floodlights set up every few feet. Children in gray robes knelt against the walls, chanting. Her eyes felt like they wanted to fly out of her head. A scaffold with grimy curtains was set into the middle of the room, more people in gray robes standing shoulder to shoulder around it, like a fence. Two of them parted for Bradley, and he pushed her through the curtains, following.

A ghoul in white robes sat before them on a stained glass throne, with a small girl to his right. The ghoul was terrible-looking, all his skin flaked away, muscles completely exposed and browned like cooked meat. He turned eyes onto her, completely obscured by cararacts, and when he smiled, her chest exploded in fear at the rotting teeth and atrophied tongue that lay within his mouth. Celia cried, forced to kneel by Bradley, her breath short and sharp.

_Is that what Lionel will turn into?_ she asked herself.

"Bradley!" the ghoul said, his voice like radio static. "Who is our guest?"

Bradley jerked her arm up and held her so she was visible, but she flipped her hair over her face and looked down. He dropped her after a moment, and she fell to her knees again. "This is Celia Landis, sir," he said. "She was in possession of the ISD."

"You found it?" the ghoul asked, expectantly.

"Of course, sir," Bradley held out the metal beam.

The ghoul fluttered off the throne like a bird and swept up the beam, moving far quicker than his atrophied appearance would indicate. Celia watched him, fascinated, as he looked over it with the sightless eyes, turning it in his hand. "Yessss-" he hissed, then frowned, and made a high pitched growl. "No! _No, no, NO!"_

Bradley stood stock still as the ghoul cast aside the metal beam and clawed at his face. Celia edged away, glancing at the little girl. She stared at Celia with big green eyes and smiled sweetly.

"Look at the state this is in!" the ghoul growled, after discontinuing the assault. Bradley stared ahead, blankly, the scratches on his face bleeding slowly. "I can't use _this!_ I'll have to build a new one―it will take MONTHS!" The ghoul slammed the metal beam down onto the throne and cracked the glass.

Celia swallowed her fear. This ghoul was so much more frightening than Lionel and Lilian, but he was still lucid. She wondered just how far a ghoul could go, before becoming completely feral. _Oh, Lionel,_ she thought. _Please, please don't come here. If you're alive..._ she didn't want to think about that. Bradley said he would live, and she expected the old soldier knew what he was talking about. But he'd been hurt so _badly._

The ghoul immediately became more tractable, turning back to Bradley like a switch had been flipped. "What of Wade?" he asked, as if he'd never been upset.

"Dead, sir," Bradley said. He held out a Pip-Boy.

"What a _shame,"_ the ghoul said. "I was looking forward to executing him, personally." He looked over the Pip-Boy, feeling it with thin fingers. "Strange that he was so preoccupied with this girl."

"She seems determined to get in the way of Sigma, sir," Bradley said.

The ghoul turned to her. She didn't know if he could see her, but he looked directly at her face. "Is this true?"

She pushed herself back, sitting on her feet. "I―" she swallowed. The air was so hot in this place. "It is not," she said, in a small voice.

The ghoul laughed, and the little girl echoed his laughter. Celia was startled, looked at her with wide eyes. A brown hand came out and swiped across her face, and she cried out, fell forward. Her nose was broken again for the second time in a week. She knelt on her elbows, and tears fell to join the blood on the dry wood.

"Impertinence!" the ghoul snarled. "Interfering with Paramount operations is punishable by _death."_

"Shall I carry out the order, sir?" Bradley asked, drawing his weapon and aiming it at her head.

The ghoul sat down on the throne, on the broken glass, and considered for a moment. He ran his hands along the metal beam again, an ecstatic expression on his face. Celia looked at him through her hair, trying not to move. He placed a hand on his cheek and leaned onto his elbow, staring at the metal thing. "Bradley," he said, maliciously. "I don't think Phaeton has been _fed,_ recently."

She jerked her head up. _Phaeton? What is that?_

"I will deliver her to the Sepulchre, sir," Bradley answered.

The ghoul waved them off, and held the metal beam in his hands, running his white eyes over it.


	52. The Selpuchre

Jesse was on a run south of Toskey and decided to stop in at Grayling, after completing his job. He went to Stockton, and didn't find anyone, then went back to Grayling and asked if anyone had seen either Celia or Lionel about. No one seemed to want to talk about the ghoul, but neither person had been sighted recently. Jesse was only curious because he wanted to tell the bitch off for kicking him in the nuts and, if she had gone back to Lionel, Amos would be so pissed.

The town doctor was the only folk who was even remotely concerned about the girl and the ghoul. She pulled him aside and offered to take him out to the shack where Lionel lived. Jesse shrugged, and figured it wouldn't hurt to check it out.

Dr. Jen didn't talk much as she led him up through a winding path in the trees, and around some rocks into a hiding hole. He swore when they came out onto a disaster scene, a metal shack collapsed to pieces, almost.

"My God," the doctor said, looking at the mess. It was like someone had smashed the shack with a massive hammer. "Lionel?" she called.

A pattering noise came from somewhere under the fallen roof of the shack. Dr. Jen stepped inside and swore something that made Jesse blush.

"What happened?" he asked her, and climbed over the metal sheets.

"Help me, here," she said, and started removing sheets of metal and bits of wood from a pile. Jesse held one end of a large sheet and moved it away for her. Lionel lay on the ground underneath, covered in blood and mangled-looking. Something had obviously tried to chew on him, and there was a crowbar sticking out of his stomach, having been pinned under the metal sheet.

_"Holy_ shit, chick," Jesse said. "Is he―?"

"Fine," Lionel said, weakly. "The roof," he added, with a little grunting laugh.

"You old bastard," Dr. Jen said, removing more bits of wood from around him. "You never did fix your damn roof, did you?" She eyed the crowbar, then looked at his chest. A hole on the right side of his chest gaped.

"You mad," he wheezed. "At? Me?"

"Personal opinion has no bearing on treatment of injury," she said, mildly. "And, no, I'm not."

He grunted in pain, tensing up. Dark blood bubbled up around the crowbar and Jesse cringed. "Jesse―" Lionel said, turning his head.

"Alright, we've got to get you back to Grayling," Dr. Jen said. "The lung isn't so terrible, but you've been run through the stomach."

"No!" Lionel said, with more energy than he would seem to have.

"What? Lionel, don't be an idiot." Dr. Jen looked around and pulled a piece of metal to his side, laying it flat. "No one's gonna shoot you. Lilian isn't even around, anymore."

Jesse wondered what that meant. "You thinking radiation?" he asked the doctor.

"It would help but there isn't any for miles," she said, "so we'll just have to do this the old-fashioned way." She grabbed Lionel under his shoulders and directed Jesse to move his legs. They moved him onto the sheet.

"Jesse," Lionel said again.

"Yeah, man."

_"Ce―"_ he started coughing, and spat out some nasty black clots.

"Okay, let's go!" Dr. Jen said in a no-nonsense voice, and grabbed the metal sheet to carry him away.

Jesse helped her get the ghoul back to Grayling, and answered a few questions, and wondered a lot about what was going on. It appeared that the roof of his shack had collapsed, and the ants got to Lionel while he was indisposed. Dr. Jen was curious as to Jesse's story. She was aware that Celia, Lilian, and Lionel had left together. She didn't think it was an issue. Lilian had come home with a fantastic story that Dr. Jen didn't quite believe.

"I didn't tell anyone that they were gone," the doctor said, handing him a cup of coffee. Lionel was hooked up to a machine, sedated. "Lionel was frightened, even. It's very rare to see him get scared."

"What, scared of the soldiers? Or because the one was threatening Celia?" Jesse asked, pointedly.

"Given the way Lilian acted before she fled town this last time, I'd say the latter." Dr. Jen sighed. "Poor Lionel."

"Why?"

She glanced at him and shook her head. "Boy, you got a box of _rocks_ for a head?" she asked, imitating the gruff ghoul. Jesse grinned and knocked himself on the forehead. "It appears that he fell hard, for Celia," Dr. Jen went on. "With my mother around, it would have been torturous. Lilian is... a bit like a windstorm, when she's angry. Very pushy, knocking things around. All you can do is wait her out."

"Yeah, I know," Jesse agreed. He remembered the trip back from Gladstone with Lilian Swanton.

Dr. Jen nodded. "Lionel didn't want to help her," she said, remembering. "He was angry and lonely and would have stayed by himself forever. I made him take her in."

"He listens better to ladies," Jesse laughed.

"He does, and that's why he caved to Celia," Dr. Jen said. "She was white as a sheet when she came through here."

Jesse told Dr. Jen about the trip to St. James, and how Celia had radiation sickness. He explained what it had looked like to Amos and him. Dr. Jen shook with laughter. "That's so terrible!" she moaned. "Oh, I can't imagine how awful it must have been."

Jesse also told her about Lilian pushing Lionel into the lake and the fist-fight between the women. Dr. Jen only shook her head and remarked that it was a good thing that Lilian hadn't stayed in Grayling for very long, once she'd returned with Jesse and Avery.

"Where is Celia, then?" Jesse wondered.

"I expect Lionel knows. We'll have to wait until he wakes up," Dr. Jen said.

The entrance to the Sepulchre was a thick stone wall with a large metal door set firmly into the side of a hill. Someone had taken red paint and drawn a skull onto the door, with a large ban symbol beside it, and the word "GOLGOTHA" was written under the symbols. Celia fought against her hand cuffs, hyperventilating.

"Welcome to Golgotha!" one of the soldiers guarding the door called out, drawing out the vowels. The other snickered loudly. "Hope you _enjoy_ your _stay!"_ the first soldier said, sarcastically.

She was brought inside a metal bunker, handed off to another soldier by Bradley, who marched away. The other led her further into the bunker, and she could hear the wails and moaning in the distance, a thousand trapped souls crying out for rest. She shuddered, felt her wrists chafing, and quailed against the soldier's push. It grew darker the further they went, and she could hear dripping noises and a low hum pulsing through the conduits on the walls.

She was led onto an old subway platform. Four generator pylons, with a resonance barrier between them, stretched from one side of the room to the other, and blocked off the open mezzanine to the lower level. The stairs had been knocked down and were crumbling on the level below. Several soldiers stood around the room, two on either side of a pulley system attached to a metal cage beyond the barrier.

"Present for Phaeton!" the soldier leading her called out. He pushed her out into the room.

"Celia Landis," a familiar voice said, and laughter echoed in a metal helmet. She was numb with terror, or she would have fainted. "How _nice_ of you to stop by."

She stood, stiff as a board. "I'm afraid this isn't a social visit," she whispered, trying to be brave.

Mayer chuckled. It bounced around his helmet again, and out into the subway platform, ringing off the walls. "Too bad," he said. "I could have taught you _so many_ interesting things."

She shuddered. The soldiers around him laughed. "Let's go," one of them said, and turned off the barrier. She was pushed forward into the metal cage, and the barrier turned back on. The cage lowered to the floor, jerkily, and the door swung open.

She stepped forward into the gloom of the lower level, hearing growling in the tunnels ahead of her.

"Start walking," Mayer called out. "Wouldn't want to keep Phaeton _waiting."_

Celia turned herself toward the tunnel ahead and walked forward, without looking back.


	53. Phaeton

**PART THREE**

* * *

There are things that go bump in the night. Usually, we're only scared of the potential, the shadows that creep along the walls and fill our minds with what we perceive could be, doomed by our own imagination.

This, for him, was The Purpose. The Purpose was important to him. He was a shadow, and The Purpose, that potential he had, was what made him frightening. He cowed the others into submission with The Purpose, scaring even the most long-gone mind. He was the scariest, the quickest, the hardest. He was Phaeton.

It was a title, a prestige. Before The Purpose, he was called Rock. Before he was Phaeton, he killed any other creature who walked across his path. He only knew he was Phaeton by divining the entrails of the ghoul who'd come before him, in the Sepulchre.

On occasion, he would eat someone.

He still thought of himself as Rock. No one in the Sepulchre could call him that; they couldn't speak with sane words like he could. "Rock," he'd say to himself. "Rock, Rock."

Sometimes the horror caught up to him and he would run screaming through the tunnels, clawing at the others as they wandered through the living hell. He'd climb the walls and tear into the ducts, scrabbling through them with echoing growls and screeches. It didn't happen often and he would eventually pass out in the ducts, while his mind uncracked.

The Purpose would come back to him, when a newcomer entered the tomb. Time had some meaning to Rock.

He woke to a new feeling, a strange fluttery feeling. He remembered small creatures on the forest floor, little heartbeats stammering in the dark.

The flesh smell came to him, then. How long had this one been there? Flattened against the wall of the duct, eyes wide open, watching his every move. He turned one yellowed orb onto her and saw her squirm, saw the goosebumps raise along the smooth flesh.

She smelled of the chemicals that burned into the air, of disinfectant wash, and she smelled of ghoul. Stank of it, really. He wasn't sure. She had skin, but wasn't defiled. She wasn't running screaming through the Sepulchre with his demons hot on her heels, ready to catch her up and chew on her. The lucky ones were eaten quickly. The ones who hid would become demons in his army.

"Rock, Rock," he muttered to himself. This flesh was hiding from his demons remarkably well. She had a weapon, but it smelled of metal, rust. Not blood, not blood.

He inhaled. Under the other smells, he could taste the sweat, the fleshy smell of the panicked. A sweet smell. He wasn't hungry, but she had an aroma that was tantalizing.

"Rock," he croaked, and crawled over the corroded metal toward her.

She jerked and fled, crouching through the ducts. Phaeton followed, but Rock stayed sane inside him, warning him. There was danger, here. Phaeton ignored him.

No words were spoken when she disappeared into the ducts, and Phaeton followed her easily by the sweet candy smell. He could hear that fluttery heartbeat, like the frantic tapping of the knife she held, against the metal walls.

A vent lent her out into a power room, and he cornered her. Nowhere to run. She struck out with the weapon, sliced into his face, but Phaeton knocked this to the ground. He grabbed up her hands and pushed her against the corner, and went for the throat.

"Rock," he mumbled, pushing Phaeton back.

Her eyes were rolling in their sockets. Earth, the earth, with white skies above. "R-rock," she echoed him, her voice fearful.

He stopped, and investigated this sound, from the mouth of the sweet fleshy thing. One phlegm-filled eye crept over the fat lips, bruised and swollen.

"Rock," she sobbed. _"Please,"_ she added.

He heard his name spoken by another. It had not been said aloud by any other than himself, for such a long time, that he had not believed it was his name. He put his face near that swollen mouth and inhaled. The ghoul stink faded away, fainter. Perfume, cloying smells of flowers and cleaning products, aprons and apple pies. She was _sweet._

"Rock," she whispered, into his mouth.

He liked it. The sound in the darkness. Made his blood beat faster through the sluggish memories, through his wiry limbs, through the mush that made his brain. He licked her mouth, tasting the sweat and blood and perfume. Tears, on his sandpaper tongue. _Real._

A rabbit, in the tomb. Velveteen soft, but Real.

* * *

Calhoun numbly performed his assigned job. He was aware he'd been conditioned; the effect was like having a pillow over one's head, soft and downy, but an implied threat of violence if one removed it. He couldn't fight the feeling. "Paramount is security."

Instead, he examined the situation. It could be broken, he knew. If he could rip the pillow from his head and see that the violence was not only outside, but inside, he might be able to see the world again as he ought to. It had dulled his willpower, denying him the chance to fight. He was subdued, reminded by the thought that he was safe, he was safe, in Detroit.

He read the entries about soldiers and citizens who had "englished" their conditioning. With no exception, all persons were re-conditioned and reassigned to work for the betterment of Man. He studied the effects, observing the individual cases and comparing them to one another, working out how to break himself free. Even if he knew, he couldn't say whether he would be able to break free, but he would at least know how.

And knowing how seemed to be so very important, now―

He'd grown fearful of the thoughts in his head. He'd tried to remember Nina, the Vault, the shock of the outside world, even the ghouls. He remembered Lilian's horrible greenish face, and Lionel's lidless eyes. The patches of skin that were just gone, peeled like a potato. The mouths without lips, the―

_"Paramount is security,"_ and the thoughts would melt away, as if they'd never existed.

The night shift on Tower 2 was relatively slow. Calhoun shared the night with Senior Comm Officer Manus, logging the reports of the soldiers in the field. One evening he came across a familiar name, reported as having been detained and sentenced to the Sepulchre. He vaguely understood this meant that his wild child been taken to Golgotha, the prison, and thrown into a tomb of some sorts. Manus explained it further with a graphic tale about Phaeton.

Phaeton was death.

Calhoun read the entry twice before he archived it, saving it to the massive computer storage facility beneath Tower 2. He turned his eyes out over the wastes, seeing the distant haze blurring the lights of other towns, drowning the world in terrible smog.

He'd thought about her, of course. Others had not been gentle in words relating to her actions; he focused on her warnings. He ought to have listened, actually kept her terror close to his own heart. He'd had a simple undercurrent in his memories, that if she were still alive there was hope for the ex-Overseer and his people. That she might someday rescue them like she had pretended to do so frequently in her little games.

_No,_ he thought, _in reality, fairy-tales quite often end very badly._

Calhoun continued to perform his assigned job.


	54. Day Two

Jesse didn't bother to go home. He stayed in Grayling and sent a courier off to tell ARC that he was taking a break and would be back in roughly two weeks. Amos would understand―and probably assume that Jesse was bunking with some girl. Jesse figured he had about twenty days before Amos came looking.

It was ten days before Lionel could be taken off the sedatives. Dr. Jen refused to remove him any sooner; she carefully explained to Jesse that life as a ghoul was incredibly painful on it's own without needing to worry about the excess injury that often happened.

Apparently that translated to "Lionel will bug the fuck out the minute he wakes up and break shit" with a distinct note of "don't even try to get in the way". Jesse had ducked so many surgical instruments in the last ten minutes, he was starting to worry he'd have to have surgery himself. Lionel was angrier, meaner, and more foul than Jesse had ever seen him, even when he had Lilian over the edge of the barge.

Dr. Jen stood against the storm like a rock, her face impassive behind her glasses, letting the curses and threats bounce off her. "I will sedate you again," she warned him. "You are agitating your stomach wound."

Lionel just made growling noises like a feral ghoul and Jesse had to leave the clinic. It was almost an hour of horrible fighting later that a more sane-looking and much calmer Lionel exited the clinic with Dr. Jen holding his arm muscle in a pinch that saw her fingertips meeting through the exposed muscle.

"Jesse?" she asked him, in the same voice that Amos reserved for his most uncomfortable, and usually annoying, requests.

He sighed. "Whaaat?" he moaned, in a low tone.

"I need you to escort Lionel," she said, and her hand twitched on his arm, but Lionel only looked forward with a dull expression. "Take him out to the Radcommons."

Jesse scratched his head. "Dunno where that is," he said.

"Don't worry," Dr. Jen said, and he could see her arm muscle was so taut, she was shaking. She didn't let go of Lionel. "Just head south on 75, you'll find it in no time. I expect Lionel will let you know when you are there. Just him, though, don't go in there, yourself."

Jesse nodded, and jogged in place a bit. "Is, uh, is he gonna bolt the minute you let him go?" he asked, half-joking.

She shot a harsh look at the side of Lionel's head, and shook her own. "I don't know. I had to dope him with med-x, so he may be... awkward."

She slowly removed her hand from the ghoul's only arm and Lionel shot it out to Jesse, grabbing him by the front of his shirt, then stomped away with him. "Shit, man, _slow down,"_ Jesse said. "At least let me go, I got longer legs than you."

Lionel jerked his hand away, then slowed down, and eventually ambled into a dazed walk that Jesse recognized as the shuffle of an addict. He actually started feeling sorry for the old ghoul. He'd seen the look many a time in Spalding, and he knew how bad it could be for someone to relapse.

They moved south, on the highway. Jesse smelled the Radcommons before he saw it, and once the half mile stretch of barrels started filling his nose and throat with a dry nasty burn, he stopped and backed up about one hundred feet. "Go do your... _thing,"_ Jesse said.

He kept his rifle out, regardless. Toxic waste meant feral, and feral was something he didn't want. Lionel stood in the middle of a circle of barrels, looking like he was waiting for the sky to open up and hammer him with rain. He kept his head back and eyes on the sky. Jesse kept his eyes open wide, sweeping the expanse, and a finger firmly against the trigger.

It was not more than a half-hour before a horrible rage-filled noise poured into Jesse's ears. At first he thought Lionel had gone feral, and he swiveled the scope down onto the ghoul, watching him nervously. Lionel simply strode back to the road and started walking south, with haste and hard steps hitting the pavement.

All the signs of the addict were gone. Jesse sprinted down the highway to catch up. "Where you going?" he asked, once he caught up.

"Detroit," the ghoul said, and the feeling under the word was one of serious hate.

"What?" Jesse ran backwards in front of him, trying to have a conversation. "They'll _kill_ you, man!"

Lionel stopped and Jesse tripped, tumbling backwards. He rolled back up onto his feet with ease, never letting himself stop. "Go home, kid."

"Naw," Jesse said. "What's in Detroit?"

_"Celia,"_ Lionel said, and his voice was fearful and soft, now. "Go back to Gladstone," he added, gruffly, and started walking again. He brushed past Jesse with a hard shove.

Jesse caught himself and gawked. "How the hell did―?"

"Not willingly," Lionel growled. "Go the fuck _home,_ kid."

"No," Jesse said, mustering his courage. "No. I gotta go with you. Amos wouldn't let me walk away from a man who's going to his death."

Lionel just picked up his pace, and Jesse fought to keep up. "Seriously," Jesse added. "I wouldn't mind an apology for that ball-tap, either."

"Next time," the ghoul said, shooting him an angry glance, "it won't be her, does it. It'll be me, and I'll kick your fucking teeth in."

"Yes, sir!" Jesse said, saluting.

"Come on, then," was the answer.

* * *

Day two. The Rabbit told Rock stories. He kept her safe, kept his demons at bay. Beauty and the Beast, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White. She put his name into the stories, and in his mind he was the prince, the woodcutter, the Beast. He listened raptly under her gaze, which grew softer every time she began a new story.

The other, in his head... Phaeton growled and scratched at his skull, demanding to be let out, growling to eat her, to break her bones against the metal floor. But Rock wanted stories. Wanted to hear the Rabbit say his name, over and over. He wanted rid of the other, but he needed him, to keep the demons away. He didn't want the other to come out, but he let Phaeton tear apart the army before the Rabbit, and pretended it was he who was saving her.

The Rabbit cried when Phaeton tore apart the demons, and Rock licked away the tears like a pathetic dog, whining.


	55. Meets It Beats It

By the time Lionel and Jesse made it far enough south to recognize the smoke in the distance as Detroit, Lionel was sure she was dead. Didn't stop him. He didn't want to believe in anything but the anger that he felt close to his heart, having lost his one chance. Didn't really see a point in existing, if he couldn't have her beside him. And he still didn't have the guts to blow his brains out.

Jesse tried to drag more information out of him, about what had happened. Lionel felt the radiation in his bones, making him move quicker, making his head pound with hate. He wasn't afraid. He was mad, like she had said, and he felt the sting of the Royce's intolerance against him. He was mad at the kid, too.

They camped in a small hollow between a couple of rocks, under the smoke-tinged sky.

"I have been alive for a long time," he told the kid. "I do _not_ give up."

"I believe you, man," Jesse told him. "But I don't see this ending well for anyone."

"No," Lionel said, "it _will not."_ The kid ducked his head at the words, like they were daggers flung at his head. There was a moment of silence, before Jesse popped a knuckle in the dark and snickered.

"You're just gonna go in, guns―_gun_―blazing?" Jesse asked, with a smile. It took Lionel a lot of willpower not to smack the kid upside the head. "Why?" the kid added, quieter.

He was surprisingly optimistic in his response. " 'If you love someone deeply enough, anything is possible.' "

"That... is ridiculous," Jesse said.

"I know," Lionel shrugged. "Saw it in a movie, once. Point remains proven."

The kid stared at him with a slightly open mouth, dumbfounded. Lionel ignored it for a minute, then picked up a dead branch and pushed it under the kid's chin to shut his mouth. "That's _really_ how it is?" Jesse asked him. "We're about to try to assault a city of maybe five hundred or more people, and you're quoting about love?"

"Kid, I don't know how it is." Lionel tossed away the stick. "I know it's gonna hurt like hell, though."

"More than being shot four times, chewed up by ants, a roof falling on you, and a crowbar in your gut?"

_"Hell,_ kid," he said, "that wasn't pain."

Jesse raised an eyebrow at the ghoul. _No,_ Lionel thought,_ real pain was hearing her needing me, crying out for me, and not being able to do a goddamn thing about it._ He clenched his jaw. "Every _last_ motherfucker," he muttered to himself.

"I don't fault your reasoning," Jesse said. "But we really need a plan. I mean, I'm just a punk kid from Northern Michigan, and you're―"

"I'm _what?"_ he asked the kid, edgily.

"An old, one-armed ghoul with a death wish?" Jesse said, cautiously. "We're gonna need big-time smarts to go up against Paramount, at any rate."

"Suppose you know how to get information," Lionel said, looking pointedly at the kid, "since you're a bounty hunter."

Jesse shrugged and leaned back on a rock. "I only really know how to talk to people."

"That makes _one_ of us."

"Well, shit." The kid looked up at the sky and hesitated. "I guess we could hit up locals for gossip, maybe test the waters..."

_"You_ could," Lionel said. "I would just get us killed."

"...But that'll fuck up your schedule of running in like a damn fool," Jesse finished.

"If she isn't dead by now, she's not going to be," Lionel said, dully. He cracked his neck and felt a strange pop in the muscle on his bad shoulder.

"How do you know?" Jesse asked.

"Because," the ghoul rumbled, "if you didn't kill her right away, and you had her enslaved, what would you do with her?" He might not believe any more, but Lionel hoped to God she was dead, in this moment.

A second passed before the kid shot straight up, his boots thudding on the rock. "Holy shit, man!"

Lionel let the sick feeling fall to the bottom of his stomach and rest there. "You're quick enough, kid."

_"Whoa,_ but―" Jesse frowned. "Man, I've heard some horror stories about Detroit, but―"

Lionel stood and pushed the kid back down onto the rock. "We're on the same page," he said. "Don't move. I need to talk to a man about a mule."

"What?" Jesse was simultaneously confused and concerned.

"Damn, kid, let me take a piss," Lionel rumbled. "Stay here."

The area around Detroit was dead. Very little had survived the bombs, even in the suburbs, and the ground was barren earth. Dry trees stood haphazardly, leaning to the left and right, but Lionel found a rock to lean on. It never got any easier, but his bladder didn't seem to care.

The sky was coated in the black clouds of industrial soot, and puddles of irradiated water were everywhere. He'd already warned Jesse off of them, something he ought to have done for her, back before St. James. _A stupid plan,_ he thought, but something had come of it. He shut his his eyes to her memory, trying to keep her both in his mind and out of his head. Didn't need a black rain dream with her in it. He tried to remember what day his birthday was, but all that came to mind was the year he'd gotten so fucked-up drunk he'd cracked his skull off the deck of his houseboat.

That had been a good year. He'd met Dolly, that year.

Lionel laughed at himself for the thought. _Lost one, gained one, lost one, and already thinking about another lady._ He looked down and regretted it. Dolly was long dead, much like certain parts of him that didn't need to be thought about.

Lionel looked up at the sky and knew she was dead. A bruised portion of his ego refused to believe it. He was the knight on the white horse, here, bustling in to save the day. The hero untying the lady from the train tracks. Though, in that case, he knew he needed to watch out for the train he was entirely likely to throw himself under.

Besides, if she _was_ dead, what the hell was _he_ waiting for?

"More than two shakes and it's playing with it," someone said behind him, and he turned. "Might fall off, rotgut."

* * *

Lionel spat blood onto the ground, dark and hot, like the landscape. He grinned at Landis, in front of him, and raised his fist. The first one's always free, he thought.

Landis had spiked knuckles on his hands. He stared at the ghoul with a hateful look, and moved to the left, feinting. Lionel knew better, went right, grabbed his hand and squeezed. Landis groaned, but stood, yet. A bit of respect for the fucking bigot went through him.

_"Where is she?"_ Landis asked, in a fury. "I went to the town, and they said they was all taken!"

"Hmph!" Lionel grunted, and pushed back against the man. Landis punched out and hit him in the jaw, knocking him sideways but not off-balance, and swept out a leg, trying to take him down. Lionel twisted the man's hand, hearing the cracking of the tiny hand bones. He pushed Landis down onto the ground, in pain. Jesse rounded the hill at the sound of a fight, and came to a stop nearby.

"What's this shit?" he asked, looking at Lionel.

"Oh, for _fuck's_ sake," Landis muttered, and punched repeatedly at Lionel's wrist. He released the man and booted him firmly under the jaw, knocking him up and backwards.

"Told you not to move, kid," he growled at Jesse.

"Shit, that's Cameron Landis!" Jesse moved into the fight. "Break it up!"

Mildly annoyed, but still riding the high that came from fighting, Lionel grabbed the kid by his hair and held his head up, looking at him intently. "I finish fights," he said.

"Yeah," Jesse said, "but we _need_ the nasty bastard, man!"

Landis got up, wiping his chin of the blood that flowed freely, and held up his fists. "Come on, shuffler," he said, setting his feet. "Let's go."

Lionel threw Jesse at him, and followed up with a swift punch to the side of the head, knocking Landis out entirely. He stood, breathing heavy, fist clenched, and looked down at the two. "Why?" he asked Jesse.

The kid stood and rubbed the arm where he'd landed on the other, grumbling. "He's been to Detroit before, right?" Lionel shrugged. "Alright, maybe he knows his way around better than us. He's got a better reason than _you_ to get in there and find Celia."

This time, Lionel did not let his morality stop him, and smashed the kid in the eye. Jesse swore something inventive, something Jen would say, and dropped. He stopped himself, feeling the blood draining from his head, the rage subsiding.

"You have a point," he said, and offered Jesse a hand up from the ground. "But don't _fucking_ assume."

Landis moved slowly, and the two stared down at him. "He's gonna be hurting tonight," Jesse said, and winced, poking the raised flesh around his eye. "Man, how'd you get to be so damn _tough?"_

Lionel rolled his arm in the socket and pulled Landis up off the ground, staring at the wrinkled old man with a hard eye. "Meets it, beats it," he said, and dragged him off to the hollow in the rocks where they were camping.


	56. Day Five

Day three. When the Rabbit ran out of fairy tales, she told him other stories, as many as she could remember. He would have been content to hear the fairy tales again, but the new stories were just as good. Rock was the hero of the day, every time. He preened, rubbing his head on her knee. She patted his skull and he felt his heart soar.

The other shrieked in his mind, and climbed around like a spider. Rock ignored him. All he wanted was to hear the Rabbit say his name.

Day four, and she'd run out of stories. Rock was aware of the time passing, he knew it had been longer than four days, but it only felt like four to him. He brought her food and water, and she did not complain. She ate, and grew silent, and her flesh-perfume smelled of ghoul again, and she cried. Rock saw the look in her eye and could not help her.

_"Lionel,"_ she sobbed.

She repeated the name over and over. Rock was upset, and fled into the dark tunnels, let Phaeton out, killed the demons he could find. When he'd slated his anger, he came back and found her gone. It took him a much longer time to find her again, hidden in a grate with the demons prowling around.

"Rock," he said, and reached in through the bars, trying to touch her. She shrank and hid her face, curled into a ball. He frowned. This wasn't how the Rabbit was supposed to be. He was scared, now. She hadn't said his name for a long time. Was he Rock? "Rock."

Rock lay down in front of the grate like a dog on a porch and whimpered.

* * *

Lionel knew how to be frightening. Even before the War, he'd been a big man, a hard man, with smashed features and an unapproachable feel. Baffled him, still, that he'd never lacked for female company. But he knew how to stand, how to stare, and he hadn't spent the entire one hundred and twelve years in the post-apocalypse being a gentleman. Admittedly, he hadn't spent even twenty years doing that. He'd made a habit of not getting his ass handed to him in both worlds, and it was obvious that he'd let it go to waste in Grayling.

It only got easier to be frightening when he'd become ghoulified, even with only one arm. The reaction was either fear or violence, and this Abramov fellow was definitely afraid. Lionel exhaled slowly, and eyeballed the man with his best effort. He could see the older man fidgeting behind the desk in the cellar, even though it was dark as hell.

Landis was talking to Abramov, calling in some sort of favor. Lionel had never been to Flint before the War. He stared mulishly at Abramov.

Jesse was idly working at a stud in his leather jacket, cleaning his fingernail under the edge. Lionel felt that; they were all bloodied, beaten, and smelled like the backside of a Brahmin who had the green apple splatters. There had been another fight, and Jesse was bruised a little but unbent by the hard punches that Lionel had thrown. Landis could barely see over the swelling in his eyes, and Lionel was covered in vomit from the gut punch landed by Landis. His abdomen ached from the lacerations of the spiked knuckles, but he had walked away. Wasn't nothing like being puked on by a ghoul, to end a fight. After, they'd had a long talk.

Jesse was the one who'd convinced Landis to contact the "rebels" in Flint. Abramov hesitatingly glanced at Lionel the whole time he spoke with the bigot, and Lionel stared. Jesse wanted to join up, and help out. Lionel just wanted to get her back, and if he needed to use the rebels, so be it.

"We haven't got enough people to stage any real action," Abramov said. "There's only about thirty or so of us." He played with a spent energy cell, trying not to glance back up at Lionel.

Landis nodded in agreement, but Jesse looked up with an eye roll. "Don't need more people," he said. "Me n'the ghoul can take on whatever you've got."

Landis sighed. "Boy, it's damn stupid to make a promise that you ain't gonna keep."

"We do have an idea, of possibly taking down one of the towers that broadcast the infrasonic signals." Abramov said. "But, hell, I only got one tower with a spy and Peanut isn't exactly military-caliber. I don't want her in the way of danger like this."

"None of us can guarantee anyone's safety," Landis said. "Not even our own, Ab."

"I doubt you started leading a rebel faction just so's you could pussy out," Jesse snorted. Lionel sighed, in his head. The kid was some kind of stupid. Unfortunately, the stupid often worked in their favor.

"Crass behavior won't bring results," Abramov said, frowning at the boy.

"Alright, well, give us a password or something. So we can tell this Peanut chick, get her safely away. Then we'll go fuck shit up." Jesse grinned.

Abramov sat back in his chair and put the energy cell down with a soft click. "I still don't know if you're legit," he said to Jesse.

Lionel decided now was a good time to be frightening. He strode forward and grabbed the older man under the jaw, sinking bony fingers into the depressions behind his ears and lifting. Abramov struggled, his legs tensed from trying to maintain balance in the awkward position. Lionel growled at him, moving his face closer to the rebel's.

"Aw, now you done pissed him off," Jesse said, laughing easily. Landis turned to the kid, and something must have registered in his look, because Jesse came to stand next to the ghoul. "Not too hard, now," he murmured.

Lionel wished he could reach into the gaping mouth of the rebel and rip the information out of his throat.

"Relax, Abramov," Jesse said. "He won't kill you. But he's real, real, good at making hurt. Have you ever been beaten by a ghoul?" He tapped his eye and Landis rubbed his chin, reflexively.

Abramov's eyes widened. "Promise―" he said, stiffly. "Peanut... is... _safe?"_ he grunted.

"I don't hurt girls, unlike some people," Jesse said.

Lionel dropped the rebel and snapped a fist at the kid, hitting him across the nose. Jesse swore loudly, fell backwards, and Lionel realized he'd made a mistake. Landis was eyeing him now, with a heavy look of hate. This time, he knew, he couldn't avoid the blame. He backed away, sinking into the shadows of the cellar.

Jesse stood back up and sniffed, wiping blood from his nose. "Shit, man, I wasn't talking about you," he muttered. Lionel stared at the dripping blood and tried not to let his anger get the best of him. It was a test, for sure. Landis was still staring at him with that hard face.

"Is there something I should _know?"_ he asked Jesse, not looking away.

"No," Jesse said, "no, that was just a gut reaction." He snorted and coughed. "Lionel ain't so hot on certain types of violence."

He owed the kid, now. It bothered him that Jesse should lie for him, not let him handle the fallout. He'd handled it before, and no manner of soap opera could ever compare to the radioactive burn of the bombs.

They discussed some plan while Lionel's mind slid into another gear, rumbling along the highway of memory. Abramov turned on a light. The lamp on the desk, attached to a battery, flickered occasionally, and barely lit the room enough to read. Lionel remembered holding her in his bed, watching her sleep. Following the curve of her mouth with his eyes, seeing her pout, watching her heart beat in the delicate skin on her neck. She had no idea, he thought, how he really felt about her.

He shook his head. _More hurt. Don't want._ Why was he torturing himself like that? Goddammit, what was wrong with him, anyway? It was getting worse, the more he didn't have her around to keep him gentle.

"You two just recently arrived," Abramov said. "Do you know anything about Detroit?"

"No," Jesse said.

"I have an idea," the older man said. "It should add to the element."

"Alright." Jesse rubbed his nose and sniffed again. Lionel gave it to the kid, he knew how to take a punch. The thoughts from before slipped from his mind.

Abramov gestured to Lionel. "Does he speak?"

Lionel laughed, amused. Jesse shot him a look. "He's... curt," he said. "Better to save his words for when we need them."

"You thinking Phaeton?" Landis asked.

Abramov nodded. "Yes, actually."

"The fuck is Phaeton?" Jesse asked.

"Boogeyman," Lionel grumbled.

"Decidedly so," Abramov said. "Phaeton rules over the Sepulchre, in the lower levels of Golgotha. If any one of us were caught, we might be fed to him."

"Nasty," Jesse said. "You want Lionel to pretend to be Phaeton?"

"Most of the soldiers follow the church pretty closely," Landis said. "They've been force fed the idea since birth. It would cause a certain amount of terror to think Phaeton walks the wastes."

Abramov nodded. "Could you live up to that image?" he asked Lionel. He almost looked afraid to hear the answer.

A gear shifted. " _'For the life of the flesh is in the blood,' _" he intoned, and a terrible smile came across his face. Jesse flinched.

"I think you can handle this," Abramov said. He sighed. "Try not to kill too many people, though. These soldiers still have families among the rebels."

Jesse looked nervously at Lionel and Landis. "Are we causing fear, or becoming mass murderers?" he asked.

"There is no fear," Lionel said, _"without_ blood, kid."

* * *

Day five. The heat from the grate was so much that Rock felt his skin melting when he touched it. The Rabbit hadn't moved since she'd fallen asleep, sobbing. All was quiet now, no stories, no fleshy lips saying his name. He paced, growling, felt the faint heartbeat throbbing in his own chest, not knowing what to feel in his head.

The other screamed and demanded to be fed, but Rock was more powerful than him, more sane, more frightening. The grate was rent from the wall, he smelled the foul flesh melting. The smoke that rose from his paws was gray, the flesh healed nearly immediately.

Danger. He knew it, he lifted the Rabbit from the duct and saw her head flopping. He retreated to another place with her, and crooned absently while he tried to understand. What to do, the apple pies were fading and blackened burnt skin was overpowering his senses. The cooked meat smell was terrible, but it was him that smelled of it.

She smelled like scorched earth and ghoul, the bloody smell of flesh, the sweaty smell of fear. Phaeton screamed again, and Rock looked down at the Rabbit.

Men in metal screamed at him too, panicking, when he muttered "Rock, Rock" and placed the Rabbit into the garden gates. The fairy would come soon, maybe. If the Rabbit was no longer Real, then what was she? What was he? _Was_ he Rock?

And Phaeton rose to the surface, hidden for too long, screeching and biting, whirling back into the Sepulchre.


	57. Great Honor

She was dreaming, and she knew she was dreaming. It was a weird feeling, like she could control what was happening, but only because she knew she could.

Mayer was there, and Bradley and Angus, and even Wade, but he looked like a corpse, walking around. His face was puffy and swollen, and grey with purple streaks across it. They were high-school kids, like herself, and everyone was in the Vault. Mr. O'Nan was droning on about some strange topic, and she craned her neck to see the board. Ghoul Physiology 101, it read, and she was shocked. What was going on?

Lilian was there too, and she was a high school girl, blowing bubblegum out and twirling her hair. She was wearing one of those poodle skirts that Celia had seen in a movie somewhere. She wasn't a ghoul, anymore, but a pretty pouty-faced girl with fat lips and a look of utter boredom on her face.

And Calhoun, he was there, sitting behind her with a studious look on his face, staring right at the screen ahead. He was a teenager, too. He didn't look at her, at all. She examined his face and thought to herself that he really was attractive, in a broad sort of way. Her heart panged, and she didn't know why.

She was confused. At the front of the class, she saw Officer Pesaro, also dead like Wade, wheel in a gurney and lift the sheet from it. _Lionel!_

She cried, a little. Calhoun lifted a large hand and put it on her shoulder, squeezing gently. The ghoul was dead on the table, eyes staring, his chest cut open from a previous Y-incision. Celia walked to the front with Calhoun, and looked down upon the body, seeing the damage.

"Hard to imagine them alive, isn't it?" Pesaro said, with a smirk. Celia didn't feel the anger she might have, only the sorrow. She put a hand out to Lionel's cheek and felt the rough skin, the dryness, the exposed muscle. Calhoun put his hand over hers, and drew it away.

"It's okay," he said. "He's not here."

What did that mean? She turned to him, bewildered, but he'd turned into Jesse, sitting on the projection table, smoking a cigarette and blowing rings into the air. "I told you," he said, and the smoke rose up around her, billowing. "I told he'd turn into a monster."

And then Lionel rose from the gurney and grabbed her around the chest, put his head down on her neck and bit her―

She jerked awake and panicked immediately. The room was dark and smelled of chemicals, but it wasn't the Sepulchre, or at least nothing of it that she had seen before. Her eyes unfocused and she felt a cold sting in her arm. An I.V. bag above her, she was on a hospital bed. She sighed and laid back, staring at the ceiling. The orange glint of the Rad-Away in the small light from the hallway entranced her for a moment.

She remembered everything, all of a sudden, and vomited violently off the edge of the bed. The I.V. stand rattled with her motions, and she pulled the I.V. line out, throwing everything to the floor in anger.

Darkness, the smell of rotting flesh, the growling of humans gone mad... the unbearable heat of the tunnels. How did they not dissolve in that irradiated heat? And Rock. She remembered him, of course, his eye glinting with slick mucus, staring up at her. She had held him in her arms, she owed him her life. He was so horrible, but so gentle, at the same time.

How close was he to utter madness? Had she helped him? She hoped _not._ It was probably better for him to remain insane in the Sepulchre than to reason with the empyrean darkness of that tomb. She pulled her legs up to her chest and stared at her toes for a moment.

She didn't want to think about Lionel turning into what Rock had become. She would rather die herself, than to even imagine that. All she wanted from him was to be there, to hold her if she were sad, to tease her mildly. She wanted his happiness, and he had seemed happy enough just to be with her until she brought up... that. It was only curiosity that compelled her. She regretted it, now.

_Lionel, stay away from here. I'm the dangerous one, now._

The door to the tiny room opened and a soldier stepped inside. She froze and kept her eyes on her feet.

"It is my duty to inform you," Mayer said, "that although you were sentenced to death in the Sepulchre, you have been granted a stay of execution."

_What?_ She plucked at the bedclothes, nervously.

"You have been ordered to see the High Ferrule," he went on. "You will serve him as he deems appropriate."

Celia wrapped her arms around her knees and buried her face. Rock may have been bad, but he hadn't struck her like the other had, or acted without compunction. She desperately wanted anything but to go back to that bower and see him again.

"If... I refuse?" she asked.

"I'm afraid you cannot," he said. "You know this."

Sober-minded and business-like Mayer was a good deal more scary than the laughing pervert he'd been before. She turned to look at him, sought out the visor on his helmet. "Please," she whispered.

"You've been given a great honor," he said. A tiny waver played in his voice, echoing gently through the helmet. "You should be proud to serve the High Ferrule."

She stared at him. He was afraid? Of... her? _Why?_

"When you are ready to go, I will take you to the Temple of Solomon," he went on.

She stared at the crumbling wall in front of her and felt the pain again, when her nose had broken the second time. How long would it take to heal? How much longer, if the ghoul on the throne hit her again, or would he even let her heal, but break her nose every day?

She thought about Lionel again. What would he do, in her situation? He was strong. He would try to fight, like he had with Wade. She wondered how Wade had died. She assumed Lionel killed him with the revolver he always carried. He was tough. He would live, she knew it. He wouldn't give up, either, if he wanted to do something. She'd never seen him quit something unless Lilian or herself had asked him to. She thought about what he said. Meet it, and beat it. She had to be tough.

_But, oh, god! Please don't come here!_

Celia buried her face in her knees and cried a little. _I can do this,_ she thought. _I'm stubborn. I can do this._

She stood from the bed and walked slowly with Mayer through the building. She wondered if the skies of Detroit would ever be free of the black smoke, or if the whole city was tainted by the evil that sat on the throne in the Temple. Celia had no aspirations for herself; she'd only wanted to find somewhere to belong, and then maybe she might farm and tend Brahmin until she died. She knew that it was selfish to want a peaceful life, when so many others led such horrible nightmares.

The people here, they need help, she thought. Mayer escorted her through the streets, but he did not touch her, or bind her. He was afraid of her, she knew. She turned her eyes to the filth and suffering. Children played in inky water, but their soot covered faces remained blackened. They ran through the streets, yelling and making noise, but they didn't laugh. A soldier kicked a woman lying across a doorstep, passed out drunk or dead. Others sat in the doorways, drinking liquor and staring numbly out over the asphalt. Men in the streets, both moving and not, were prodded by the soldiers, pushing them into buildings.

"How do you _do_ it?" she whispered, her voice awed and trembling.

Mayer poked her in the back with his gatling laser and hissed, "You get better, or you get dead." He forced her through the awful streets, but didn't speak again.


	58. Terrorist

For the third time that day, Sue got the broom and and the bucket and cleaned up the mess that Graham had made. She hoped that whatever he'd eaten had melted a hole in his stomach, because if he threw up on the floor again he was going to be dead, either way. She muttered this to herself as she swept up the mess and applied Abraxo to the tile.

"I'm _dying,"_ the idiot moaned. "Ross, you gotta take over."

The lesser officer adjusted a dial and shook his head. "Not until Control gives us a replacement," he said. "If you do die, I'll run the tower. But only if you do die, which I think is unlikely."

_What a shame,_ Sue thought, and scrubbed harder.

The senior operator moaned and groaned, writhing in his chair. His prompt beeped, and he ignored it.

"Graham, your prompt," Ross said.

"Ughhhh!" But Graham looked at it, and rubbed his eyes.

Sue stayed in the tower only a little while longer, before dashing outside to the fresh air of the wastes. _Well, as fresh as a dead world can be,_ she thought to herself. The tiny three building town of Sterling didn't smell very good, anyway.

Outside, she moved away from the tower and dug a hole, burying the vomit. Carefully, she wiped out the bucket with more dirt, grimacing. A noise in her ears brought her to attention and she looked out at the distance, scanning. Sterling hardly got bothered by creatures in the wastes, thanks to Paramount's vigilance, but the kind that caused the most bother was usually people.

A young man's head popped up out of the brush, and moved toward her. She pulled her knife out and tossed the bucket at him, backing up a few steps.

"Stop right there!" she said. Whoever he was, he wasn't from Detroit. Too clean.

"Friendly," he gulped, when he saw her brandishing the knife. "I'm friendly. Jesse." He held out a hand, kept his other flat out where she could see it.

"What do you want?" she asked, roughly.

"I'm, uhhh..." He chuckled and looked sheepishly. "I'm lost."

She eyed him. "You going to Detroit?"

"No, no... well, not yet," he said, and flopped himself onto the ground. He sighed. "I'm trying to find someone called Peanut?"

She swore, and relaxed. "Didn't Abramov warn you not to approach the place, directly?"

Jesse grinned at her. Sue felt her heart melting a little, and wrapped a cold hand around it. "He did. I'm sorry," he said. "I really am lost."

"Go around the trees and find a rock that looks like a skull. If the tower men see you skulking around, they might shoot you," she warned.

He saluted, and disappeared around the hillside again. Sue returned to the tower, after putting away her knife. She put the bucket by the door and grabbed the broom.

"Who was that?" Ross asked her.

"Lost little idiot," she muttered. "Wanted a cigarette." She huffed at the thought.

Graham had lain his head down on the console and gone to sleep. She looked at him, saw the slick wet spit that dribbled from his mouth, and sighed. "Ross, can I have a break?"

"Go on," he said, waving her away.

Quickly, ducking through the brush and moving around the hill to stay hidden, she moved toward the rocks. The young man was waiting for her, and stood up off the rock as she approached. "I'm Peanut," she said. "What's up?"

"Abramov said to tell you 'Bully!' and that it is time to enact the plan."

Sue swore, and rolled her eyes. Bully, really. He's gonna get himself killed. "What plan?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips.

"I dunno," he said. "He just kept saying 'the plan' and making weird twitching movements."

She sighed, and stared down the black-haired young man. Great, she thought. "The plan" was Abramov's way of saying he wanted a full-scale take down of the radio tower. "Why?" she asked, curious.

"Something, something..." he pulled out a gun and held it on her, aiming for her heart, "...because I _said_ so."

Sue just stared at him. This was quickly becoming the worst day. "What, you want in the tower? Can't get in without my keycard?" She fished it out of her pocket, and shrugged. "Take it. I'm sick of that pukey bastard, anyway." She tossed it down onto the ground.

Jesse gave her a tired little smile, a rueful one. "I don't like holding guns on girls," he said. He didn't make a move to lower the rifle, though. "The devil made me do it."

"The devil. Really." She rolled her eyes and made her hands into fists on her hips.

"Yeah," he said. His eyes flicked up and over her shoulder. _"That_ one."

And a massive arm swung around her chest, pulling her backwards into a hole in the rocks.

"Man!" Jesse said, listening to Peanut's struggle, as she fought the restraints back in the rocks. Lionel had gone into the small hollow and said something to her, and she'd redoubled her efforts to escape. "What did you say to her? She's really freaking out."

Lionel, crouching by the bushes, shrugged his shoulders. Jesse picked up the keycard and turned it around in his hand. "What's the plan, then?" he asked.

Lionel gestured to the door. "You run out there, go around in circles by the door. I'll stand behind it." He looked at the keycard in Jesse's hands. "Won't need that."

Jesse pocketed it anyway, and started running in place. "Say when, O Devil," he joked.

"Just go, kid."

Jesse took off, the ghoul following behind him. He ran around on the dry earth outside the door, whooping for the hell of it. Lionel shot him a look and shook his head.

After a moment, the door beeped, then flung open. Lionel caught it with his leg, and slammed it back onto the man behind it. Jesse ran up and kicked the man's feet out from under him with a dropkick, knocking him backwards on the tile inside the doorway.

"Helmet," Lionel said, and Jesse swiftly removed the combat helmet from the man's head. He tossed it aside as Lionel sat down on the man's chest, pinning his arms down with his knees. He growled at the dazed man, and put his hand on his neck.

Jesse looked around the corner of the hall, spying on the other tower operator. He looked like he was asleep on the console; this one was wearing power armor. Jesse sneaked up behind him and aimed his rifle at the man's helmet. _ Hah! He is asleep,_ he thought. With a swift motion, he unlatched the power helmet and jerked it off the man's head.

In the hall, an agonizing sound echoed, and Jesse fought back a tremble. Lionel was brutal. He aimed his rifle at the back of the sleepy operator's head. "Don't move, man," he said, to the drowsy man.

The ghoul came to join him, after the sounds in the hallway stopped. "Jesse," he said, "Go strip the armor from that one."

"But I'm having so much fun here," Jesse said, trying to play off his nerves. Lionel shot him a withering look. "Fine!" he said.

While he tried to figure out how to get the armor off the dead man, Lionel had a muted conversation with the radio operator. Jesse heard glass shattering, and clicking noises like a keyboard. When he returned, the operator's head was smashed into the console and Lionel held the mans' arm in his hands, fiddling with the display in the armor. "What are you gonna do?" Jesse asked.

Lionel looked up from the screen, his face a picture of frustration. He shoved it at Jesse. "You type," he said. "Tell them, 'Phaeton walks, tower―" he looked around the room. "Tower 32 is dead."

Jesse typed it as best he could, then looked up at the ghoul expectantly. "Anything else?"

"Send Bradley," Lionel said, darkly.

"Who's Bradley?" Jesse asked, but received no answer. "Uhh... Oh, _shit,_ dude!" he laughed at himself. "Uh, I may have sent that to all Pip-Boys everywhere."

Lionel grunted and hooked the operator's body, peeling it off the bloody console. "Drag the other one in here."

Jesse let Lionel do the next part. He hadn't been aware of what Lionel was planning, but once the combat knife came out and started slicing open the corpses he had a fairly good idea. He threw up in his mouth a little, but he wouldn't admit it. The insides of people were almost as disgusting as Delaines, and he'd never had a head for butchering. Lionel grabbed out intestines, tossing them like decorations around the room.

"Doesn't that _bother_ you?" Jesse asked. The smell―shit, and blood, and a faint smell of vomit.

"Sometimes," the ghoul said, calmly. He sliced a hunk of skin off one of the men and threw it at the ceiling.

Jesse walked outside, waiting for him to finish. He went down to the hole in the rocks and untied the girl, telling her to find Abramov and let him know Phaeton had walked. He kept his rifle on her until she had disappeared over the hills completely. She was sort of cute in a Kewpie doll way. He chuckled. Not a chance, now that he'd had to hold her hostage.

He sat down and wondered why he'd even wanted to help these people, or Lionel. If this was an indication of how things were going to be... Lionel just could not give a fuck about anything, or anyone, but himself and his goal. Which was what? To get his girl back? She was probably dead, and if she _wasn't,_ well, Lionel might not want her back.

Maybe she'd been brainwashed, too. Abramov said the conditioning was in the airwaves, broadcast over the area through radio towers like this one. It kept the locals passive and productive. No one knew exactly how to break the conditioning, not even Abramov, though most of them had been asleep and having nightmares when it happened. Abramov kept a careful record of everything, but was waiting on every radio towers to be disabled before effecting any change.

Jesse didn't really understand how someone could be brainwashed by listening to the radio. Abramov had warned them away from any source of radio, just in case, but how would they even get into Detroit if there was a chance they could be conditioned? At least the other rebels had the buffer of knowing they'd been under control, and that let them keep their heads. But, how did you know if you were conditioned?

Jesse determined, much like many other things in his world that he didn't understand, that he ought to let it lie and ignore it until it became an issue.

Covered in various disgusting fluids, Lionel exited the tower. The two newly joined rebels walked out into the wastes, to wait for the next move.


	59. Cry Wolf

Manus and Calhoun were called in during the daylight shift to deal with a massive influx of messages. Protocol called for all soldiers to send suspicious missives to Control, and so they had; all four towers were under assail from the sheer amount of reports.

Tower 2 received close to two hundred reports from confused soldiers. The message was the same in each report.

"PhAEtoN WALKs, toWEr 32 is DEAD. sEND BrADLEy."

Operating annotations were simple, and Calhoun found himself logging the reports into the Archive without reading them due to the large amount of "What does this mean?" notes.

Bradley's notes indicated a desire to track the new threat with deadly force, and asked to be ordered out. General Mercado replied that Omega was sufficient to deal with the terrorist, and kept Bradley on the border near Coldwater.

Calhoun wondered what was going on.

Two days later, Tower 38 in Pontiac went down. Another influx of reports, all with the same message. "PhAEtoN WALKs, toWEr 38 is DEAD. sEND BrADLEy."

And again, the very next day, from Bloomfield. Tower 37 was torn apart. The investigation by Omega reported that the brutality only increased as the terrorist hit each tower; in this case, the operators had been partially skinned and one was still alive, hung on a hook in the ceiling, screaming about Phaeton and the defiled as he bled onto the tiles.

Omega tracked the culprit as far as the 696, the highway north of Detroit, but the trail grew cold. They were baffled as to how the terrorist managed to stay hidden so well in such a heavily populated area. It didn't help that about five reports of a Phaeton sighting were coming into Tower 2 every hour, from as far south as Monroe to as far north as Flint.

Several days passed and the frightened people of the surrounding area came into Detroit, either seeking protection or re-conditioning. The palpable terror of Phaeton walking the wastes was enough for some people to lose their heads. Calhoun marked the idea in his head, and wondered how to produce a like result for himself.

Plymouth was next. After the lull, it was easy for some to think that it wouldn't happen again, and this time it was in broad daylight in front of several witnesses that the tower exploded. What was left was described as a flesh-like slurry of bone and guts splattered at least fifty feet from the tower. Manus visibly paled at the report, and noted that the message was slightly different this time:

"PhAEtoN WALKs, toWEr 35 is DEAD. sEND BrADLEy or ArBor is NExt."

Maybe, Calhoun thought, just maybe, there was still a chance.

* * *

Adam sat on his glass throne lazily kicking a leg into the back of his latest acquisition, watching her take the minor abuse without complaint. But then, she really _couldn't_ complain, could she?

He laughed to himself, amused. Echo repeated it and looked up to him with her beautiful green eyes. He loved those eyes, and he would forever see Aysha in her, which hurt his heart. But he wasn't some weakling, and he took that pain, and made it his. This was his life, his purpose. Detroit was his intimate love letter to the world, his promise to the people who dared to writhe like worms on his hook, until he threw them into the fishing hole.

It was hilarious, that Phaeton _wouldn't_ eat this young woman.

He pressed his foot into her back hard, pushing her forward. She put up a passive resistance, just enough to avoid falling over, but did not move out of the path. Just as he'd directed. He tittered. Truly, the infrasonic dampener was a blessing from _God!_

But a sharp pain, right into his core. How _dare_ Aysha run away from him, from his glory in the center of Detroit, only to die in the wastes like some savage? How dare she steal from him, take his research―her research too, but he was the lead scientist, he always _had_ been, hadn't he?―and lose it out in that atomic wilderness that made up the world? The only dependable place for people like himself and her was Detroit, where they had their home before the War, where they had―

He paused for a moment. Memories weren't as fluid as they used to be, more like a crackling fire. If he thought too much about one thing, it was consumed in his mind like a piece of paper with words on, gone forever to the madness that he felt building up.

Well, no matter. He had his toy, now, and it worked just fine once he ripped it apart and replaced the casing. It fit snugly with the other piece, as well. But he had no use for the old ISD, so he'd destroyed it. The proper ISD was in his hands.

And now... Now he had his Eve, and wasn't she _pretty!_ She didn't have the beauty of Aysha, or the glowing eyes of his Echo, but her skin was truly something else. Other than minor scarring on her back, she was pristine to his touch. He hadn't abused the privilege, yet. He might. He _might._

She stared forward with eyes that hazed, a deep brown that reminded him of chocolate bars and brown labradors. Hadn't he and Aysha had a pretty dog like that? He couldn't recall. It might have been that Aysha had an allergy to dogs, for all he could remember about the woman. Dead in a ditch outside Grayling, now, according to his Eve.

He ran his eyes over the girl's back, and ordered her to turn around. She complied, and he cupped those flawless cheeks in his withered hands, felt the sweat that stuck to her skin, wondered at the feeling. It had been so long since he'd had skin, and Aysha's skin had never looked as good as this girl did. He stroked her cheeks in the manner of a fond uncle, pinching and grinning in memory.

Echo mewed like a cat. Adam turned to her, pushing Eve back roughly. Was his Echo jealous? He patted her head and dangled a hand in front of her, and she rubbed against him like a cat. How silly. She was too young to properly express herself, he knew. She hadn't had the social experience that Eve had, growing up with others who would have talked to her.

An idea formed in his mind. "Eve," he directed. "Tell Echo a story. A fairy-tale or something like that. I don't know... The Boy Who Cried Wolf."

Eve turned her head and focused on the little girl, then smiled faintly. She began to speak, and he listened to her, idly. It wasn't until she was halfway through the story that he appreciated she had a natural talent for storytelling.

_How wonderful,_ he thought. At least he wouldn't be bored while the renovations to the Concourse were going on.


	60. Arbor

The resistance splintered. Abramov and Landis refused to cooperate with Lionel and Jesse, since the escalating violence of the terror attacks on the towers was reprehensible to them. Landis was still working on his own plan, according to what Jesse had heard. _All power to him,_ he thought.

It didn't matter to Lionel that he was no longer backed by the resistance leader. Half the people following Abramov immediately latched onto "Phaeton" and cut ties with the others. There was talk of a successful revolution with Phaeton as leader, people speaking optimistically of the outcome of the attacks, and some disturbing enthusiasm for the atrocities that Lionel had committed.

The ghoul himself was becoming testy; the more people who joined up with them, the less stealthily he could move, and he would often disappear for a day or two. When he returned, he would call his "cabinet" together and discuss the next action.

Jesse hadn't even realized the Bloomfield tower was attacked until Sue told him; it upset him, that he wasn't being included in all the plans, anymore. Lionel owed him for saving his life, and shouldn't be treating him like a stupid kid.

"Don't forget why we're here," he'd told Lionel.

Lionel had looked up at him from a map he'd been studying for half the day. He hadn't looked angry, or mad, or even sad. He'd looked intense, and he'd tapped his forehead with a finger, then resumed studying the map.

Jesse took that to mean he still had Celia on his mind, and he was somewhat grateful for that. As violent as Lionel had been... Maybe thinking about the girl would keep him sane. Jesse was terrified that the ghoul would go feral, as often as he'd been exposing himself to radiation.

The rebels were camping in the sewer system underneath Arbor. Jesse didn't understand how Lionel had come up with this grand plan to take down the tower in the large city. He knew why the ghoul had made such a bold statement. He was banking on the presence of more soldiers to freak the fuck out with his Phaeton persona. But Arbor was easily three times as large as Pontiac, and they couldn't expect to sneak in and out, or even blow up the station, like Bloomfield.

The group was positioned in the sewers directly under Arbor's town hall, laughably close to capture. Jesse felt a slow grin come across his face. It was a big "fuck you" in the face of Paramount. Lionel had scouted, alone, into the recesses of the sewer system and reported it free of anything other than radiation and rats.

"Here," Lionel said, and pointed at a spot on the map in front of him.

Five people, including Jesse, leaned forward to see what he was motioning at. A hand-drawn sewer map was in front of them, and he was pointing at an outlet on the far eastern side of Arbor. "Escape route," he said.

"But where are we coming up from, to attack?" Sandoval asked, eyeing the map.

Jeremiah sighed. "Be patient," he told the dark-eyed man.

"I see what you're saying," Sue said. "See? If we're already up top, and need to escape, this outlet is inside the metro. There are tons of corridors to lose pursuers in."

Lionel nodded at her. "You," he pointed at the last member of the group, "follow this." His rough finger traced along a tunnel and landed on a sewer grate north of the tower. "Clear the path, come up."

Kelley Todd sighed. _"Alone?_ Man, that'll be rough."

"Jeremiah," Lionel pointed to another map, to the side. "Follow the road, play beggar. Sue will follow and make a distraction."

Sue laughed. "Oh, fun. You're gonna get it, Jeremiah."

The older man sighed. "Don't get me shot again," he said.

"No promises," she replied, a twinkle in her eyes.

Lionel looked at Sandoval. "Here, you come up and draw as many soldiers as you can toward the town hall." He jerked a thumb up at the ceiling. "Take whoever you want."

"Rather have Sue," he said. Everyone knew she was a crack shot with a pistol.

"No. Take Jesse."

Jesse put his hands out in defense. "Whoa, I wanna do the main assault."

Lionel fixed him with a look, and shook his head.

"C'mon, man, you can't go in there alone!"

"Yes," the ghoul said, "I can. If you can keep the majority of the soldiers away from the tower." He rolled the street map up into a loose tube.

"How are you even gonna get in the building?" Jesse asked.

Sue poked him. "Quit arguing. When has Phaeton not gotten in?"

"Jesse has a point, though," Kelley said. "I'm coming north, Sandoval is west, and the escape route is to the east. Are you coming up south of the tower?"

Lionel made a noise that grated in Jesse's ears, and unrolled the street map. He searched for a moment, then pointed at the tower's location, pointed at a small outlet on the sewer map, then tapped the tower again.

"Oh, _my God,"_ Sue laughed.

"But that drain is blocked by debris inside the tower," Jeremiah said, frowning. He'd scouted it out just the day before, pretending to be a beggar. "You can't possibly get through all that shit."

Lionel stared at Jeremiah, blankly. Jesse cleared his throat. "That aside," he said, "there's probably a ton of people inside the tower, waiting for you."

"The tower building is barely big enough for seven people," Jeremiah said. "Even shoulder to shoulder they couldn't have more than four in there, and that power armor is as wide as two people. Maybe two operators, two soldiers." Jeremiah had only seen the operators in the tower building, when he reconnoitered. All five people in the room were aware of it. "But not much room for hand-to-hand combat," he added.

"Maybe we'll get lucky," Sandoval said. "Maybe they'll be dumb and have no soldiers inside the building.

Lionel reached into a sack and pulled out a frag grenade, placing it on the table. Sue shuddered. "Please tell me that's the back-up plan."

"Get through, throw it, get out," Lionel croaked.

"No message this time?" Kelley asked.

"The point has been made, repeatedly. They know we're coming. We don't need to warn them about the next stop." Jeremiah looked to Lionel sharply. "Though, none of us know why you have such a bone to pick with Bradley, whoever he is."

The topic had been wildfire on the ears of the group. Everyone wanted to know why. Lionel had not said a single word about it. Jesse had no idea, either.

"Are we clear on the plan?" Lionel asked.

Everyone replied in the affirmative. Sue and Jesse went to the "cafe" for some food and drink, leaving Lionel to his lone self.

"Is he ex-military?" Sue asked.

"Fuck if _I_ know," Jesse said.

"How come he's taking on Paramount, then?"

"He's _real_ mad," Jesse answered.

"Is it because of the other ghouls who are taken to Detroit?" She hit the door and it opened creakily.

"You need to stop assuming I'm in his pocket," Jesse snapped. "I've only know him for like, four months, and he's beaten the tar out of me at least three times since!"

"But you came here with him," she pointed out. She uncapped a bottle of water. "Abramov said―"

_"Shit,_ Sue!" Jesse threw a cup onto the table in frustration. "I met him up in St. James, which is incredibly far from here. And I don't know who he is, even."

"Well!" Sue sputtered. "Maybe some of us want to make sure he's really on our side!"

"He's _not!"_ Jesse replied. "He's on his own side."

"So... _why?"_ she asked, and looked at Jesse with baby blues.

He softened a little, inside. He'd not promised to not tell, though he had a suspicion that Lionel would kill him if he let the story about Celia get around. The ghoul hadn't said a single word about the girl since they met up with Landis. "I'd rather not be strangled to death," he muttered.

"Could you at least tell me about Bradley?" she asked, watching him.

"That one, I honestly don't know. I know there was a Paramount soldier what followed him up to Gladstone," Jesse told her. "He was a member of Sigma."

"One of the special forces?" She sighed. "I wonder what Phaeton did to them."

"Look, this last time I found him, he was trapped under a metal roof, chewed up by ants, shot four times―one of which collapsed a lung―and had a crowbar stuck into his stomach. If Bradley did that to him, I don't doubt his motives." Jesse respected that the old grump was tough. He didn't want Sue to think less of their leader, to have a finger in a crack and work it open.

"Fair enough," she said. "I'll let it be."

Jesse excused himself then, and went back to speak to Lionel. It was time he asked about this Bradley man, and time he got proper answers. Lionel owed him for it.


	61. EXILE-8

He hurt all over. The pain was intense. But that was good, because if it had been less he might not have sought out the healing radiation that he needed. He still had his legs under him, so he kept walking through the pain to find the irradiated barrels somewhere in the tunnels under Arbor.

The group had scattered. The next tower was in Flat Rock. He would make his way through the sewer systems, and move above ground at night, when necessary. He'd been lucky, so far. But first, he had to heal.

Lionel breathed in through one lung. The other had collapsed with the high number of lasers he'd felt passing through his chest. It was a goddamn _miracle_ none had hit his heart. But maybe not, maybe that was what he was looking for. The pain that followed made him go down on one knee, clutching his chest in pain.

The plan had gone well, or at least it had gone. Jeremiah and Sue banged out a terrific distraction. It was hard to ignore Sue when she got herself worked up, and Jeremiah's passive-reactive nature played into that well.

Kelley's movement to the north had been a bluff, to test the spread of the soldiers. If there had been any in the area he came up, he could have easily backed down into the sewers and fled.

Sandoval... well, Landis had called it when he said no one's safety could be guaranteed. How many of those who were with him had escaped? He didn't know. He hoped the kid had, at least; last thing he needed was one of the Royces coming down on him for getting their brother killed.

The inviting glow of radiation before him, and he fell into a pile of green goop.

If he couldn't find her before he went feral...

He slept.

* * *

Bradley requested again to be allowed action against the terrorist Phaeton. He intended to draw Phaeton into a trap, bring the person into the open. A simple plan, worked with what Bradley could only describe as indomitable nature. He did not give quarter. He hadn't had a plan go awry yet; unless one counted Wade. Wade's actions were irrelevant to the situation at hand, however.

Control ordered Bradley up to the Temple of Solomon. He left Coldwater and potential recruits for Sigma behind. Sigma had not been reactivated once Wade left the team; Bradley knew it was a punishment for his incompetence, for not training the young man properly.

When Bradley stepped into the bower, he was mildly surprised to see that the Landis girl was there. She had not, as he previously thought, been consumed by the demons in the Sepulchre. She was placable, sitting at the High Ferrule's side, dreamily watching the distance. Bradley had delivered her to her fate; she had been removed from it. He was concerned by this anomaly.

"Sir," he said, and knelt with his helmet under his arm.

"Bradley," the High Ferrule drew out the "r" sound. He looked pleased to see the soldier. "Do you see my collection?"

"I do, sir," he replied.

"My Echo is extremely amusing," the High Ferrule said. "But this one, well..." He laughed unpleasantly. Echo laughed with him. "This one is the only living creature that Phaeton will not eat."

Bradley stared at the Landis girl. She sat very still, looking ahead of her without emotion. He felt his gaze scrape over those blank brown eyes. "He won't, sir?"

"She was in the Sepulchre for almost ten days," the High Ferrule crowed. "And Phaeton didn't even so much as gnaw on a _finger."_ He laughed again. "She took exceptionally well to the EXILE-8 program, coupled with my new toy. Watch!" The High Ferrule turned to the girl. "Eve, undress."

The girl stood and began to remove her tunic, without a change in her expression. Bradley felt repelled but he watched, as ordered. She stepped out of the gray outfit and stood under the hot lights of the bower, breathing calmly while sweat built up on her bare skin.

"Isn't it something?" the High Ferrule cried. "The ISD works!"

"Yes, sir," Bradley said. He turned his eyes back to the High Ferrule.

"Now," the other said, leaning forward, ignoring the naked girl in his view, "why are you so keen on plunging into a fight with this bothersome terrorist?"

"Phaeton has issued direct challenges to me," Bradley said. "Why should I not feel compelled to answer his call, sir?"

"Well, whoever is playing make-believe out there certainly knows how the city works, and has hidden well enough to keep Omega frustrated." The High Ferrule sighed, leaned back in his throne. "You aim to do _better?"_

"Yes, sir," Bradley said, firmly. "This person must be operating with a terrorist cell somewhere in the outlying areas of Detroit. We must find them, and make an example of them, or the chain of command is in danger of being broken."

"It is true that many of my people have lost their conditioning over this nonsense," the High Ferrule muttered. "I've had enough of this thorn in my side. If you feel that you can do better than Omega, Sigma is reactivated."

"Thank you, sir," Bradley said.

"Wait. Watch," he said. "Eve, it's cold in this room."

The girl started shivering violently, shaking off sweat. The High Ferrule giggled like a small child, enamored of his plaything. Bradley could feel something crawling up his spine, a strange feeling that he didn't enjoy.

"May I be excused, sir?" he asked, neutrally.

"Oh, go on," the High Ferrule waved him away.

As Bradley left the Temple, his footsteps were not as confident as they had been when entering. His stride shortened, and he slowed, in thought. He'd begun to feel that there was something terribly wrong, but couldn't put his finger on it.

It struck him that he'd had the same feeling once before. When Mayer had abused the ghoul near Grayling, and he'd felt pity and allowed the ghoul to go before he was bound to bring him to the Temple. He'd cowed the feeling, then.

This time, he thought, he would would let it run it's course. Twice was too many times to ignore, for Bradley.

He hoped, whatever the feeling was, that it would be simple.

* * *

Sue, with one arm around Jesse's back and the other pressing hard onto his side, hurried him away from Arbor. They were aimed north, but she didn't care if they were going the wrong way. Jesse needed a doctor. Stomach wounds were some of the worst, she knew.

"Ma," Jesse groaned. "I'll never shirk sheep-herding, I'll hoe the damn _garden,_ I'll cook _dinner_ for you, just _let me live!"_

"You better be quiet," Sue muttered. "We'll _both_ get shot."

"I'll never pour water onto a girl," he continued, "or throw shit into someone's bed, or pretend I'm a wild Injun!"

"Engine?" She scowled. "Shut the hell up, Jesse!"

"Injun," he corrected her. They stumbled over the dry earth, and Sue adjusted her hand on his side. Blood bubbled out of the wound and she doubled her efforts. "Wild Injuns don't _garden._ They do wild things."

"Very funny," Sue said. "Pick up your feet, we're almost there."

Jesse was sedated and the laser burn treated successfully. Sue watched with more than just curiosity; any skill she could pick up for the cause was worthwhile. She asked questions and was satisfied with the answers. The doctor remarked on his youth, said he would live, and it wasn't as bad as she'd expected it to be, for an abdomen wound.

Jesse mumbled in his sleep. Sue listened to every word. When he woke, they went back out into the wastes, under the black Detroit sky.

"Who's Amos?" she asked, once they'd traveled for almost an hour in silence.

"M'brother," he answered. "Real tough nut."

"And who's Celia?"

Jesse stiffened, and stopped short. He turned to face her, a weird look on his face. "Chick, that there's laundry that don't _need_ to be aired."

Sue laughed at his attitude. "Old girlfriend?"

"No, no and no," he grumbled. "She's got―" he sighed, looked away. "She's probably _dead,_ anyway."

Later, they hid inside a drain pipe opening from the soot-filled rain, and Jesse smeared two lines of black mud under his eyes. He drew one down Sue's forehead onto her nose and explained wild Injuns to her.

After, they sat as close as possible and tried to ward off the chill in the air from the dirty rain. She told him about her boring life in Flint and how she'd gotten the job in Sterling's radio tower, and how her mother had gone missing over five years ago. She was probably dead, like Celia.

It was close to midnight when they stopped talking and clung to each other, each lost in their own thoughts about family, and Sue kissed him.


	62. So F―ed

Mayer, on duty at Golgotha, reviewed his orders one last time. He hadn't expected Sigma to be reactivated, after learning about Wade breaking conditioning. Wade wasn't listed as a team member, anymore. It wasn't surprising. Mayer hadn't liked the man very much.

He was disappointed. His dream of joining the church had been dashed, upon his return to Detroit. He'd been so angry at that, being made to walk along the corridors of Golgotha, to guard the entrance of the Sepulchre. He felt his resolve weakening. He was no longer as confident as he had been.

And that incident with Phaeton―

It was a debacle. He'd lost his composure, broken down, and cried. Phaeton, in real life, at the entrance of the Selpulchre, returning the girl to them. It had frightened him, immeasurably. He'd thought about self-termination. It made him doubt his conditioning. He hadn't gone to the Temple, yet.

_Well,_ he thought,_ once Sigma walks the wastes again, I will not have to worry. No one will know._

Mayer met up with Angus and they joined Bradley at the flagpole near Detroit's gates. Bradley had given up his pistol and had a laser rifle on his shoulder, waiting patiently for his team to assemble.

"We are extremely long range," he told them. "As of now, Paramount Force Sigma is reactivated. Our target is the terrorist known as Phaeton."

Mayer started in surprise. Bradley noticed it, and Mayer felt himself color under his helmet.

"It isn't the real Phaeton, obviously," he said. "Some idiot with ideals, trying to take down Paramount. Thinks it will scare us silly."

"Well," Angus snorted. "It shouldn't be too hard to find one of the defiled around here."

Bradley turned his head with an audible snap to the short man. "Why do you assume that Phaeton is defiled?" he asked.

Angus shrugged. "No regular person would even try to pull off half the shit this person has. I saw the reports; who else would peel the skin from a live body?" He scoffed at the thought. "Probably jealous he ain't got his own skin."

"Angus, that is―" Mayer began.

"Excellent," Bradley interjected. "That is excellent." He looked to Mayer and Mayer felt a creepy sensation crawling on the bad of his neck. "It's a lead, we will follow."

"Sir, how could a ghoul even hide around here?" Mayer asked, doubtfully.

"With help from other terrorists," Bradley said. "Let's break for play, Sigma. Our target is that one-armed ghoul from Stockton."

Mayer inhaled sharply. "Sir?"

"Listen," Bradley said, double checking his rifle, "the Phaeton terrorist has issued four challenges to Control. Each time, he has requested that Control send me to meet him. I don't know of any other ghoul who would have a personal vendetta against myself." Bradley looked to the flag of Paramount flying above their heads. "Dead ball, Sigma."

* * *

She felt strange. Trapped, maybe. Time seemed to pass very slow, but sometimes it would speed up too much and she felt her head spin. Everything was blurred, like the world was a dream she floated through. She slept, she ate, she walked, and felt―she felt what she was told to feel. She spoke when she was told to speak, and danced when she was told to dance. She sang, and her mind did not know where the words came from, only that they were there.

Echo clapped her hands and smiled at Eve, her bright eyes watching her. That was her name. Eve.

"Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh," he said to her. "Cleave unto me."

_He_ was called Adam. She knew this was his name. He'd told her so. She obeyed, his words a forever tattoo on her brain. Every command she could recall with perfect clarity, even as the world fuzzed around her like she was sinking into deep waters.

Others came, and went. She was told to obey, and she did; the smile on Adam's face became a permanent fixture as she did what she was expected to do. She could see the strange smiles, the concern, on the faces of the others, the robed men and the soldiers in power armor who came to the bower. She felt a strain, a thin thread beginning to pull too tightly, in the back of her mind.

In the emptiness of her person, unfilled by her voice and soul, nothing waited.

* * *

The world was changing around him, fluidly. Bright lights and dark waters swirling in his eyes when he opened them, and he was confused. He felt himself floating in water, saw the surface moving further away. He opened his mouth and nothing came out. There was no air in his lungs.

He felt naked feet touch the bottom, and he kicked upwards toward the lights. Two arms pulled him, strong legs kicked. He saw his skin, his own skin―he stopped, and floated in the water, felt the firmness of the skin, the hair on his arms. He laughed soundlessly, spun around in the water, and felt his head.

Still bald. He checked his other parts, and cried in joy to be whole again. The tears fell down into the darkness below him.

The lights were still there. He wondered if he should go to them. Lazily, he let the water hold him, and began to sink again. He drifted downward for ages, until the lights were almost entirely faded.

Lionel jerked when a hand touched him. He looked, and it was Celia, floating with him in the water. They embraced, he felt her skin with his lips, and felt movement in places that hadn't moved in over a century. It was strong. He gripped her _too_ hard, and she cried out.

And he could not stop, even if he _wanted_ to. She struggled against him, but he could not stop, couldn't do anything but _that―_

Celia sobbed in the darkness, and they sunk like a stone. Her tears fell up and away, toward the lights. There were _so many_ tears...

He was suddenly awake in a deep darkness. A cellar, of some kind. The darkness wasn't an issue, but he didn't know how he'd gotten there, or even where he was. He wasn't in pain. He felt strange.

He remembered the dream, and hung his head in shame. The radiation was becoming like a drug to him. He couldn't afford to use it anymore. It would only destroy him.

Lionel pushed himself upward off a pile of rubble and was vaguely aware of an uncomfortable stiffness where he would _never_ have expected it.

_Goddammit!_

He punched out and connected with a hard-packed earth wall. His hand bounced and skipped down the dirt, and he fell onto it, pressing his forehead into the wall. He laughed, a manic, unstoppable laugh, and sat down with his back to the wall. He was so _fucked._

A door opened. Light spilled into the cellar and Lionel shielded his eyes against it, standing. Someone came into the room. "Who―" the someone said, and he relaxed.

"Jeremiah," he rasped.

"Phaeton. Damn, when the hell did you get here?"

Lionel shrugged. Jeremiah invited him up into the house, but he chose to remain a while longer in the darkness.

"Who's here?" Lionel asked.

"Todd and me, Roger. Couple others. Sue and Jesse went north, after the boy got shot. Who knows where they went."

"Alive?"

Jeremiah snorted. "That boy is too dramatic. He might be a whiny crybaby but I doubt he'll die."

Lionel nodded, and waved the man off. He sat in the darkness a while longer, then creakily got up and went upstairs.

The look on his face must have been especially terrifying. One of the women scuttled away at his arrival, making a small scared noise. He ignored it. "Kelley," he said.

"Yeah?" the man called, from another room. Lionel went to him. It was a decent-sized house, two stories and mostly intact. Lionel was reminded of the home he'd grown up in. He didn't know how Jeremiah and Kelley managed to find it, but he was grateful they had somewhere to hide.

"Everyone here but Jesse and Sue?" he asked Kelley. Kelley gave him a head count, reaffirming Jeremiah's estimate. Three down, still strong.

"There's soldiers all over the place, now," Kelley said. "One of the girls says the ones down the street were telling people that Sigma is on the way. Is that important?"

Lionel clenched his fist and grinned in a sickly way. "Bradley," he said. _"Good."_

Kelley started. "Oh, fuck," he said. "We're _dead."_

"Find Roger, go blow something up," Lionel told him.

"You _want_ Sigma to find us?"

"They'll find us one way or another. We'll meet them halfway."

Kelley looked a little scared of the prospect. "Taking down one of the special forces will definitely get us on Paramount's must-kill list." He considered for a moment. "Listen, some of the others want to go home."

Lionel turned, gestured at a door.

"Yeah, I kind of figured that was what you'd say." Kelley stood and held out a hand. "I'm with you, Phaeton. All the way."

Lionel looked down at the man's hand and grasped it, shaking firmly. "Thank you, Kelley."

He went to the supplies and reloaded his revolver, and found a better knife to stick into his boot than the dulled one he'd had before. The revolver was between his thighs and he was slipping bullets into the chamber when he heard Jesse's voice come through the walls of the house.

"Stoooop," he whined.

"Shut. Up!" Sue was saying.

They entered the house, both laughing at each other. Jesse immediately lost his grin when he saw Lionel, who flipped his revolver shut and holstered it. "Hey, man," he said. "Did everyone make it out?"

"Not Sandoval," Lionel grunted.

Jesse nodded. "Tough break."

Lionel looked at the kid. "You ready?"

"What's up?"

He went to the door and opened it, stepping outside into the dark light of morning. Jesse followed him with an exclamation and had to skip-jog to keep with him.

"Are you crazy, man?!"

"Phaeton has to walk," Lionel said, stubbornly. At this point he didn't care if he got shot. It was a lost cause. He would die here, probably at the hands of Bradley. He'd never see her again.

"You're gonna get shot," Jesse called. Lionel shrugged. "Well, _shit!"_

The ghoul strode through Flat Rock, ignoring the shouts, fearful running and slamming doors. Flat Rock was smaller than Pontiac, but there were still quite a few people around. Some gathered at the edges of buildings, peeking out at the sight, others held shaking weapons on him. One foolish boy got in his way, but he didn't stop, just walked right into him and forced him to move. He walked until he reached the tower, and headed for the door.

_"What are you doing?"_ Sue yelled. "You can't just―" She went to Jesse's side. _"Stop_ him, Jesse!"

Lionel heard the kid sigh. Jesse reached out and put a hand on his arm, gently. "Lionel," he said. "Listen, if you die now, what will happen to _her?"_

Lionel looked at the kid. Until this point, the illusion had been maintained, and he'd felt more like a monster than he'd ever felt before. The kid was right. If he died, and Celia was still alive somewhere in that black nightmare, she might never get free. But, he thought, the ball is rolling, and until it meets opposite or equal force, it cannot be stopped. Newton's law.

There was no reason for him not to meet Sigma.

"I'm already dead, kid," he said, tiredly.

He opened the door.


	63. Sigma English

Amos was more than a little angry at Jesse. First that message about staying in Grayling, then he hadn't returned at all. He was officially MIA. Amos could have used him back in Gladstone to gather information and run down leads. Because he was the responsible one, he had to throw money in the fire to go after the boy.

It was unlikely Jesse had died. The area around Grayling was, in all ways, safer than even Ma Royce's farm. Relatively few creatures roamed there. Paramount didn't even come up very often. _The price one pays for safety,_ Amos thought, _is knowing that they keep you safe, and all you have to do is not put up a fight when they round you up._

The first thing he did was go to the farm and tell Ma he would find Jesse. She didn't know the half of what actually happened at ARC headquarters. He liked it that way, less trouble for him and more sanity for Ma. As long as she didn't know, she wouldn't pitch a fit about morality.

He also went home and said goodbye to Linda and his boy. "Your Uncle Jesse is in a lot of trouble," he told him.

Amos rode the barge and traveled to Grayling. The local doctor put him to rights about Jesse, said she'd asked him to escort Lionel down south on 75. Neither one had come back, yet. Amos ruminated on the information and visited Stockton. He had a long think about everything in general.

The girl was the root cause of it all. He had tried to help her, and he oughtn't have. _ You can't pick them all winners,_ he thought. And Jesse, even if she'd kicked him in tender parts, he knew Jesse was apt to go soft on girls. Especially ones that fought as hard as Celia did.

Amos wished the girl hadn't shown up with that ghoul. He wouldn't mind Jesse running off after her if she didn't travel with such dangerous company. Lionel was rough around the edges, like getting shot with buckshot. The wad shot far and wide, but was concentrated in the middle.

It had been a mistake to keep the ghoul on at ARC. Should have just told him to go home. Should have had Avery watching the girl, too; he would have treated her decent, and not lost his head over her. But Jesse had been so much closer to his age―Amos laughed to himself. Clearly, the girl hadn't cared about age.

Amos read the metal sheet on the mess hall window. "Stockton - Dedicated to the memory of Simon Stockton, who died while establishing safety. _Thy remembrance will endure into all generations._ March 2, 2153."

Underneath were hastily scratched names in the crumbling mortar. There were so many, he couldn't see them all. "Simon, Darla, ...Mike, ...Joel, Sally, Ida, ...Jack." Almost thirty names, and below them a bloody hand print was dried onto the wall. "Celia," written in blood. _"ALL GONE."_

Amos sighed. The girl really had doomed them all, and come back to make amends with the memory. If Jesse had gone with the ghoul, or the girl, or both... he should have asked the doctor more about it. Would Jesse have been stupid enough to try to get the people free of Detroit?

_Yes,_ Amos thought. _Yes, he would._

* * *

Adam danced in his chair, anxiously. The construction going on around him was necessary, but he did not want to leave his throne where it might be destroyed. Burgess didn't understand why he was so twitchy and refused to leave the bower. Adam had ordered the girl to beat him mercilessly, and watched as the tiny man was hit by the skinny girl repeatedly.

It was quite fun until Burgess started fighting back, and Adam was forced to activate the ISD. Burgess' eyes went loose, his head lolled on his shoulders. He collapsed to the floor.

_How interesting. _A different outcome. Perhaps he needed to test it a bit more―or maybe the problem lay in that Burgess was already been conditioned. If that was the case, activating the ISD array that was being built into the Concourse roof would be a moot point.

Perhaps he oughtn't have destroyed the second piece, either.

Well, thank God he was immune, and that Echo wasn't within range. Burgess twitched on the floor for a moment, and went still, but eventually opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.

"Stand," Adam said. Burgess stood.

_Interesting._ Adam did quick math in his head, calculated the range of the array above him. Speakers broadcast the music that he'd chosen, interlaid with the EXILE-8 conditioning program, everywhere in Detroit and through the radio towers. It was barely audible, but a constant friction against the people of the wasteland; even someone without the infrasonic dampener to facilitate control would eventually succumb to the effects. He thumbed the metal again, looking at his Eve.

She smiled pleasantly. She'd stood when he ordered Burgess. It was a problem with individual orders, specific orders. He'd have to work the program to include more exact objectives, rather than a broad set of goals. He growled in frustration. "Go away, Burgess," he said. "Go away and do not come back."

Burgess began walking. Adam stood and scratched the skin on his chest through his robes, feeling the crawling sensation that came when he was uncertain. He disliked the feeling.

"Come along, Eve," he said, "Echo, come. We are not needed here."

* * *

Sigma heard the reports, the explosions in Flat Rock and Tower 21 was down. Bradley approached the place with caution, looking out over the area and seeing very little high ground from which they could snipe the terrorists. His duty was still to take down Phaeton, but he could interpret it how he wished.

He'd gone off his conditioning. It was a terrible feeling, knowing he had done so many things that caused anguish. Bradley pushed the memories away, focusing on a more pressing and much more simple solution: _Make the present better. _

Unfortunately, he still saw a need to get rid of the terrorist. He'd killed quite a few people, seriously maimed others, and spread so much fear that it was virtually impossible to not confront him and remove him from the picture. But Bradley saw use in the future for such a feared person, understood his own desires to rectify what he'd done. To make his amends with his wretched past.

To fix Detroit, there would be more blood. He knew this. He _planned_ for this. _"For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword."_

Lionel, he thought to himself, was trouble. Bradley had let him go twice. He hadn't expected a campaign of vengeance against an entire city―he'd expected the ghoul to run away again, as he had before. The only thing that had changed was the girl. He chuckled to himself, and knew that whatever had gone on between those two, it was powerful.

"Sir?" Mayer asked.

"Yes, Mayer?"

"I'm... having doubts, about the mission." Mayer shifted his weight and adjusted his grip on his gatling laser.

Bradley nodded, slowly. "I understand, Mayer." He tapped his own head, in fellowship.

Angus scoffed, looking out at the distance through his scope. "First Wade, and now you, Mayer? The hell is going with Sigma?"

Mayer did not respond, not even a jab at the short man. Angus' head snapped around and he studied Mayer. "There is no shame in weakness, Angus," Bradley said. "Sometimes, it's weakness that is our strength. This Phaeton, he does it all for love."

Angus lowered the rifle barrel to his feet and he stared at them both. "What the hell," he demanded, "is this shit?"

"Angus," Bradley warned.

"You've both englished your conditioning!" he exclaimed.

Mayer shook his head. "Angus," he said, sadly, "you've been Sigma for years. Haven't you ever felt that what we've done was jawed?"

Angus stomped over and put himself right into Mayer's face. "Our shots have _always_ been pocketed, no matter _what!"_

Bradley stepped behind Angus, flanking him, and put a hand on his shoulder. "Angus," he said, quietly.

Mayer sighed in defeat. "Sir?" he asked, looking up at Bradley.

"Regardless of how you, or I, or Angus, feels, we still have a madman out here taking down towers and killing innocent people. That _must_ stop." Bradley released Angus' shoulder. "So, we're going down there, and we will seek out Phaeton."

"Will we be rounding up the others?" Mayer asked.

"We will try to take them alive," Bradley answered.

"This is―_absolute bullshit!"_ Angus said. "Those terrorists have taken down five towers now, killed eighteen of our own people, and are not going to stop!" He shoved a finger in Bradley's face. "Even if we take out the leader, the others _will_ continue their campaign!"

"Angus," Bradley warned, again.

"And you want to take them in, peacefully?" Angus put his arm up and opened his prompt. "With all respect, sir, _no fucking way!"_

"Dead ball, Mayer!"

Mayer swung the gatling laser up and brought the butt of it down onto Mayer's arm with such force that it knocked him forward, and Bradley pushed him into the ground with a well-placed shove. He landed on his face in the dirt, and Mayer pulled his helmet off. He looked with pain down onto his friend, hating to see the situation.

Bradley put a firm boot against Angus' head. "I do not condone this killing spree," he said, calmly. But I have seen the future of Detroit. It is nothing like the Detroit that we have now, _nor_ the one we should desire."

"Phaeton walks," Mayer said, trembling.

"And the High Ferrule has gone mad," Bradley added. "The very foundation of the world that came before this apocalyptic land was based on freedom. We, at this time, have _none."_

Angus grunted. "The price we pay," he mumbled, under Bradley's foot.

"Can you?" Mayer asked. "Can you pay with blind obedience? Even _I_ cannot!"

Bradley looked to Mayer. "If you've lost your conviction, you've lost everything," he said.

"Phaeton walks," Mayer said, with more courage behind his words. "The End has come upon us. The High Ferrule took someone from the Sepulchre, willingly allowing her into the Temple."

"She rests at his side," Bradley said. "And he is in possession of an artifact that can force absolute―and I mean _absolute_―obedience. We have a choice, Angus, because we broke free. We can submit to the desires of a despotic ruler, or we can take back our city and fight against the flow of the current. Is it _worth_ death, to not fight?"

"You're giving up the entirety of Sigma's pride!" Angus said. "Fifty years of peace, fifty years of strength in arms!"

"Fifty years..." Bradley laughed angrily. "Do you know how _old_ I was when the High Ferrule came to power?"

Mayer looked to Bradley, shaking his head.

"I was six years old!" Bradley said, pressing down on his foot and grinding Angus into the ground. "I watched the demons tearing apart the city! The people who were killed―my_ own_ _family_―everyone who was willing to _fight_―they were the _lucky_ ones!" Emotion filled his voice with rage, a frustration that he'd never been able to feel, or fully understand, before. "And the High Ferrule was the one who led them into the city, who let them destroy the nonbelievers!"

And Bradley lifted his foot from Angus' head. With a well-practiced action, he smashed the man's head into the ground.


	64. Deal With The Devil

_The men who came before me,_ Jesse thought, _really fucked this place up._

He and Sue sat on the ruined seats of a Pre-War arena, looking out over the sunrise through a crater. A bomb had fallen and taken out the entire other side of the bleachers, ruined the oval shape. Past the crater deadened trees stood at an angle toward the sun, the red light bleeding through them. Soon it would rise into the black clouds of the area and disappear.

Jesse's side hurt from the shot he'd taken there, and a minor graze on his cheek burned like fire. _I've been lucky,_ he thought. Sue stirred, running a hand along his chest, and sat up straighter. She'd been napping, leaning on him.

"You like it here?" he asked her, thoughtfully. He set his jaw, staring out at the sunrise.

"I dunno," she said, and leaned her head onto his shoulder. "Never been to Flat Rock before."

"I mean the whole place." He put a foot up onto the bleachers ahead of them.

"No, then."

He put his arm around her, held her gently. "When we get out of here, whenever we're done... you wanna come north with me?"

"Is that where you wanna go?" She looked at him, putting a hand on his.

"Gotta go home," he said, gruffly. "Amos would thump me right proper if I never went back."

"You think we'll make it out alive?"

Jesse shrugged. "Maybe. I don't think Lionel will."

Sue rubbed his hand lightly and sighed. "I don't think so, either."

They sat in silence for a while, and Jesse started feeling the pain from his side wound as she pressed against him. He ignored it, trying not to grind his teeth at the frustration he felt, not being able to roll with Lionel's plan. They'd been forced to abandon the ghoul in Flat Rock, and run for their lives.

"Can you tell me, now?" she asked, suddenly.

"Hmm?"

Sue turned her blue eyes onto his brown ones. "About Phaeton. Lionel."

Jesse pressed his lips together and breathed out through his nose. "Maybe."

She smiled, softly. "He's not _that_ scary, is he?"

"Chick," he said, adjusting himself and wrapping both arms around her shoulders, "Jesse Royce is scared of a lot of things." He tossed her hair over her shoulder, playfully.

"Is he on that list?" She grinned.

"No," Jesse said. "At least... _well,_ if we get into Detroit, and he finds―" he stopped himself.

"Finds who?" Sue looked out over the crater.

_"Her,"_ Jesse said, in what he hoped was a mysterious voice. "Baby Bear."

Sue said nothing. Jesse let her go and ran a hand through his hair. He shrugged.

"Not telling, then?"

"Not my story," he said, firmly. "Mine is more fun, less heartbreak." He laughed. "More nutshots."

Sue scoffed. "I'd prefer less," she teased, "I might need those."

_"Gracious me,"_ he said, and fanned himself playfully.

The sun continued to rise into the sky, fading as it hit the terrible light-stealing clouds that hovered over Detroit. They didn't notice.

* * *

Lionel had been aware of Sue and Jesse, he saw the way they'd been acting. He was somewhat relieved that the boy had moved on from whatever he'd held for Celia. It made things easier, in a way. He could cut the kid a break.

The anger that he felt, it wasn't easy. He was jealous. He knew it, but he couldn't help it. A boiling tar pit of hate and fear bubbled inside his chest, rising up and splattering his brain like the blood on the towers he'd destroyed.

He'd only had _one day._

Lionel sat in the ruins of Tower 21, tapping a tuneless beat on the consoles. Nothing responded, though he didn't expect to understand it. He wanted to make more chaos. On the wall, a tinny radio was sputtering out noises as he tapped, static and warbling and blips. He took that as a good sign. Klaxons blared in the distance but he ignored them, and leaned back in the chair, thinking.

Jeremiah was standing behind him, waiting. "Phaeton?" he asked.

Lionel turned to see the man looked fearful. "What?"

"I'm going to get out of here before Sigma shows," he said. "Kelley is coming with me. We'll meet you at Trenton?"

Lionel shook his head. "Won't need to," he said. "This will end here. You should go back to Flint."

"Are you―" Jeremiah cleared his throat. "Are you turning yourself in?"

Lionel laughed, long and bitter. "I am not an idiot," he said. "Sigma will kill me."

Jeremiah looked at the ghoul with a sad expression. "And you're just letting that happen?"

Lionel stared at the wastes through the open door, seeing the darkness that came even with sunlight. "No," he said, "but it _will_ happen. Go back to Abramov, and tell him he needs to pick up where we left off."

Jeremiah nodded, solemnly. "You take care, Phaeton."

"Thank you, Jeremiah," Lionel said, and he honestly meant it.

After the man had gone, Lionel stood and stretched out his legs. He walked outside and looked at the sky, at the ground. He wished he could have picked a prettier spot to die at. Flat Rock was pretty damn boring.

Pneumatic hissing behind him and thudding footfalls alerted him to Sigma's approach. He waited until the last moment to turn and face them.

"I've come," Bradley said. Mayer stood to his side, silently.

"Only two?" Lionel asked, raising the skin above his eyebrow.

"Angus is no longer a part of Sigma," Bradley said, evenly. "And I know you killed Wade."

Lionel nodded, vaguely. He hadn't thought about the young man since he'd left him for the ants.

"Is this it?" Bradley unlatched his helmet, held it under his arm. "Is this what you want, Lionel? Revenge?"

He stared the old soldier down, didn't respond.

"If you don't want revenge―" Bradley tossed away his helmet and held his palms up "―you want the _girl?"_

The ghoul's arm lashed out, grabbed Bradley by his throat. With all his strength, he lifted the man from the ground and closed his fingers tightly.

"She is with the High Ferrule," Mayer said, quietly. "You won't be able to get to her, without Sigma."

"I only need _one_ of you to take me," Lionel said, coldly.

"True," Mayer said.

Bradley grunted, but did not flail about or fight excessively. His eyes began to roll back into his head.

"You should let Bradley do you the honor," Mayer said, morosely.

Lionel dropped Bradley to the ground, and stared the tall bastard down. "And you?" he asked.

Mayer sighed, removed his helmet, and looked at Lionel with tired eyes. He looked like he'd been crying, his face blotchy and red. "I have been bound by the chains of my faith for too long," he said. "I can't continue, into this world we've created." He stared unflinchingly at the ghoul. "If you would?"

He would, so he did. Mayer's body crumpled to the ground, and bled a dark shine against the black earth. Lionel put away his revolver and held out his hand to the recovering Bradley.

"This is a deal with the Devil," he said, "and your soul will be my payment."


	65. Remembered

Sue and Jesse continued north. Sue reasoned that Lionel knew he was going to die, and they couldn't persuade him otherwise, so why not get the hell out of the area while they still could? She didn't like leaving behind her family, but she wouldn't be able to help them any more than "Phaeton" could. Jesse had agreed, reluctantly, and they hit the highway.

Occasionally Jesse would dart off into the wastes and bring back some goods, usually wild food. Once, he brought her a gun. "Might need it," he said, so she tucked it into her skirt and carried on.

They hadn't gone very far up 75 before a figure in the distance appeared. Jesse made a strange noise as they drew closer, then vanished into the wastes. As she had done before, Sue waited for him to return. She watched the figure drawing nearer, and wondered what to do.

"Hi there!" the man said. Sue eyed him, cautiously. He was not tall, but had shaggy hair and a beard you could hide a bloatfly in. He was dressed for action in leathers and a sidearm visible on his hip.

"Hello," she said, standing firm.

The man grinned from ear to ear, splitting his beard. Sue would have been amused if she hadn't been so careful around strangers. "I'm looking for a no-good punk named Jesse. A kid, really. You seen him?"

She put a hand on her hip and waved the other in the air, expectantly. "You got caps?"

"Sadly, I am beyond poor," he replied.

"Then I haven't seen Jack Shit, much less your Jesse." She kept her eyes on the beard, fighting the urge to glance off into the wastes after Jesse.

He nodded, understandingly. "Alright. Maybe you've seen a grumpy one-armed ghoul named Lionel?" he asked.

Sue's face twitched. She sighed. "Man!" she groaned. She couldn't keep up the deception. "You _must_ be Amos."

"Right in one," he smiled, patiently. "Now, where is Jesse?"

"Hiding, I think," she said. "I'll get him out for you." She turned to the south and started to walk away, then broke into a full run. After a moment, Jesse came flying out of some rocks and joined her. Sue caught his arm and slowed to a stop. "Sorry, Jesse," she muttered. "But _you_ gotta deal with him."

"I swear―" Jesse had a look of utter surprise on his face. He threw up his free hand. "Every _single_ time!"

Amos was shortly upon them and Sue turned to meet him. He looked like he wanted to chew Jesse up and spit him out. "Jesse, you are in so much trouble right now..."

"Oh, no!" Jesse said, protesting. "No, you don't blame _me!_ You blame Lionel, or them Paramount soldiers, or even _Celia,_ but you can't blame me!"

Amos looked at him critically. "What about Celia?"

"She's in Detroit," Jesse said. He shook Sue's hand off his arm. "And that dumb asshole went in after her!"

Out of the blue, Amos slapped Jesse right across the face. _"Don't fucking swear, Jesse!"_ he roared.

Jesse went very quiet, looking down and away from Amos. Sue's chest tightened. He'd told her that Amos was a good guy, pretty much as good as they could get. She was worried, now.

_"Every time_ you get into a jam, _every time_ someone beats you down―_every time_ you go off on an adventure, who do you think has to come save your ass?" Amos jabbed a finger at Jesse's face. _"ME!_ _I do!_ And Ma sits at home, crying day and night, because she put so much time and love into raising you, and you turned out a hellion _anyway!"_

Sue felt embarrassed for Jesse. She slipped her hand into his and squeezed.

_"And_―I don't know what godforsaken idea you got into your head to come so far south, but this―this _right here?_ This is the absolute _limit_ of what I will tolerate!" Amos' face contorted with anger, and he pointed at the ground they were standing on.

"Amos," Jesse started.

"No! Shut up!" Amos yelled. "You're going _home,_ and you'll stay home, on the farm, until _Ma_ says that you're well-behaved enough that you won't run off and _die!"_

Sue couldn't stand it anymore. "Jesse was _helping_ us!" she cried. "All our families―mine, and Jeremiah's and Kelley's and Abramov's―they're being held in Detroit, just like Celia! We were gonna get them _all_ free of Paramount and the High Ferrule!"

"Don't, Sue," Jesse mumbled, in a low voice. He hadn't looked up.

"Free?" Amos looked at the two teenagers. His voice was raw.

"Yes!" Sue stood taller, proud of her effort to help the rebels. She pulled Jesse's arm behind her and stood in front of him, pushing Amos away from him. "We have been fighting for Detroit's freedom."

"Little brother," Amos said, looking over her shoulder at Jesse. "Is this true? Did you join a resistance movement to free a city?"

Jesse nodded, looking miserable.

Amos looked at both of them again, his face softening. Sue stood firmly against him. Then, with a jerk that startled them both, Amos threw his head back, put his hands on his hips and laughed into the sky until tears ran into his beard.

"My _God,"_ he said, wiping his face. "Here I am, content with one or two at a time!"

Sue didn't understand. Jesse shrugged, hazarded a little smile. "Go big or go home?" he murmured.

"Why are you heading north?" Amos asked Sue.

"Because Phaeton is waiting for death in Flat Rock," she said. "I mean, Lionel. He got into a firefight and we had to run away."

"He's meeting Sigma," Jesse added. "He's probably dead."

"And you let him go?" Amos asked, clicking his tongue at Jesse.

"You know how gruff he is," Jesse said. "He said he was gonna get shot, and he didn't care. I couldn't help him any more."

"Doesn't mean it's _right_ to let a man walk off to his death," Amos said.

"I know," Jesse agreed. "But he's so over the moon for Celia, man..." He rubbed his cheek. "He's gone nuts."

Sue really wanted to hear the story behind this one, but she was patient. "He's in love?" she asked, softly.

"Yeah," Jesse said.

"It was wrong of us to interfere, Jesse," Amos said. "If he's picking fights with Paramount, I doubt we could stop him, anyway. And he won't let go so easily, this time." Amos sighed, ran a hand over his beard. "But he's not dead, Jesse. That one, he's tougher than a razorback."

Jesse nodded. "I know."

"Will someone please fill me in?" Sue asked. "I feel like I'm only getting half the story here."

The three walked together down the highway, and Amos told her about Celia, Lionel, and the farm where Jesse had lived. But instead of going north, Sue guided them south. Back to Detroit, and back to Phaeton.

* * *

Adam was displeased with her. Eve sobbed, noiselessly, laying on the floor of the bower. The bright lights around them caused the blood on the floor to glisten. He struck her again, and again, until her face swelled up and she could barely breathe through a bloodied and broken nose.

She wasn't sure what she had done. She had stopped for a moment while she danced, to catch her breath. She wasn't tired, but her limbs had slowed down, and she had to stop.

Adam muttered to himself, looming above her, staring down at her. "Limited to seven days," he said. "Plus/minus one. Age of subject irrelevant. Physical condition..." he grumbled to himself. _"Possible_ relevance."

She stared at his feet, blankly. Blood oozed from her face onto the floor, mingling with tears. The pain was intense, and she felt bile rising up into her throat.

"It's not forever," he whined. He held his hands up to the ceiling. "Lord, how do I make it _forever?"_

_Lionel._

Celia remembered. She stopped crying, blinked in surprise. She was aware of where she was, of what had just happened. It didn't matter that she was in pain, anymore. It only mattered that she knew who she was, again, and the spacious emptiness inside her was suddenly filled with her own voice.

She was _alive._ And she needed to get out of this place, before the mad ghoul killed her. She laid there, her body limp, looking at his withered feet, and tried to clear her thoughts. Memories were jumbled, a mess inside her head, flung here and there. She felt so tired.

"Ugh." He was looking at her now. "Go _away,_ Eve. Do not come back until you are clean."

She stood, and one of the devout around the bower escorted her to a bathroom. Once inside, she looked around at the room, and undressed, using the tunic to clean her face. She turned the water on as much as it would go and used the noise to mask her crying.

She'd been away from him for so long, now. Was he out there, waiting for her? Was he dead? What would happen now? She _would_ die, if that horrid creature in the bower realized she was no longer under his control.

Celia dabbed at her face, wincing. She couldn't remember what the last thing she'd said to him was. The thought jarred her to her core. Her memory was completely out of order, and she took some time to try to put it together.

"I'm sorry." That was it. The last thing she'd said to Lionel. But she couldn't remember _why._

She redressed and returned to the bower. Adam―the High Ferrule―looked her over. "Not much improvement," he said. "Sit."

She sat, immediately. He looked at her with a curious face, and smiled that terrible smile. It took all her willpower to not cringe.

"Interesting," he cackled. He told her to do various things, testing her. "A momentary lapse," he murmured. "But what caused it?"

Celia steeled herself and stared at a vague spot near the ceiling of the bower. _Lionel,_ she said to herself. _Be patient for me. I'll get out._

On the roof of the Concourse, a series of metal spikes had been welded to the grid work. Small metal boxes had been attached to the spikes, and Celia realized it was a series of amplifiers, designed to boost a signal. She stared at the distant point of the spikes, the horror of the array sinking into her.

It was designed to spread a signal further from the Temple, into the wastes. He planned to enslave the entire area, just as he'd enslaved her, with that ISD thing.

_No,_ Celia thought. _I can't run away from this. Not while I'm still alive. Not while I can still help. ...You'll understand, right, Lionel?_


	66. Zadorozhny

Bradley allowed Lionel to set the pace. The mortal enemies had an uneasy truce; he'd explained that he would lead the ghoul into the city, but the only way he knew would work was for Lionel to admit himself to be judged by the High Ferrule. Lionel was leaning against the wall outside Detroit, staring down the soldier. The sun had set two hours earlier, and darkness was the only thing keeping them from notice.

"Control isn't aware that you are Phaeton," Bradley said. "Angus attempted to report Mayer and myself for breaking conditioning, but the message was not sent." Bradley had spent the last half hour trying to explain to Lionel that he was on the ghoul's side. He told him about the ISD, about the High Ferrule building an array to house tower mounted amplifiers for the infrasonic signal. He did not apologize for exploding the shack, nor for invalidating the ghoul in his successful attempt to locate the ISD.

He also didn't mention the Landis girl again. As volatile as the ghoul could be, Bradley did not wish to be assaulted again. Bringing up Celia might set him off again, and Bradley would be forced to terminate him.

"This thing, this device," Bradley said. "It's a thought dampener. It sets the tone for a more complete conditioning, by reducing the willpower of the subject. It emits infrasonic sounds that disrupt the mental state of anyone within its range."

"No free thoughts?"

"Yes." The old soldier paused for a moment. He stared up at the high walls behind Lionel. "This blank state, when overlaid with a mental conditioning program, can turn any person into whatever he wants them to be. It's called EXILE-8, and it is extremely effective in cowing your average citizen."

The ghoul slid down the wall and crouched at the base of it. "Sounds familiar," he muttered.

"With the TMAs set up in the Concourse, he can broadcast a constant stream of infrasonic sounds, and the radio towers in the area are already set up to broadcast the EXILE program into the music. He can order any person to fill any role, even if they have no prior knowledge. With no free will... The people would be like robots."

"I remember," Lionel said, suddenly.

"Remember what?"

"That thing, the EXILE thing." He stood up quickly. "Before the War, it was in the papers. I read about it, once."

Bradley turned to face the ghoul. "Memory is tricky, sometimes," he cautioned.

"Some scientist named Zadoroz―Zadrozy―or something― was working on a thing to make enemy soldiers walk out of battle. I remember that it sounded too good to be true." Lionel scowled. "They were calling it EXILE-3, then."

Bradley sighed. "The High Ferrule is a ghoul," he said. "It's entirely possible that he was the creator of the EXILE program."

"Seems too much of a fluke," Lionel grumbled.

"Detroit was a leader in manufacturing, back in those days. I know that much," Bradley said. "When the High Ferrule came to Detroit, he refitted the plants to produce armor, weapons, Pip-Boys." He held up his prompt and tapped a small inscribed number. "Not 3000 models, either. This is modified to react with our power armor. I believe it's likely that, if the High Ferrule was this Zadoroz man, he would understand that branch of science."

Lionel stared at Bradley's arm. "Does it fetch?" he asked, flippantly.

"What?" The ghoul shook his head. Bradley ignored it. "If he'd had the time to modify the EXILE program, he would naturally have changed the numeral. I don't quite follow the science behind it myself."

"Not my cup of tea, either," the ghoul mumbled.

"The people of Stockton might know," Bradley said. "It is possible we could locate them and break their conditioning, to better understand what we are facing."

Lionel squinted. "We don't have time for that."

"I fail to see how obtaining information would not help us."

"What is this _'us'_ shit?" the ghoul growled.

"Our objectives run concurrently," Bradley said. "You wish to free the girl, I want to remove the High Ferrule from power."

"I'll put my fist _concurrent_ to your face," Lionel said. "Enough two-dollar words."

Bradley did not respond to the dumb threat. It was clear that Lionel did not have a detailed plan, which was perfectly alright with him; but simple was not going to be enough for this particular situation. "It would be a good idea to find a way to stop every radio tower, to make them cease broadcasting," he said, instead. "If we could get into the Broadcast Control Tower..."

"Will that stop the brainwashing?" Lionel asked.

"No, not all of it. What exists will continue until we find out how the break is triggered."

The ghoul stomped a foot onto the ground and growled to himself. "I don't like it," he said.

"Maybe your compatriots would be able to help," Bradley said, stepping away from him.

"They're gone, all of 'em," Lionel muttered.

"Who is that, then?" Bradley asked, gesturing to a group of five people approaching them.

* * *

"Kid, you really _are_ some kind of stupid," Lionel said to Jesse. He couldn't believe that he and Sue had come back, after vanishing during the firefight at the tower in Flat Rock. Even more, he couldn't believe that Kelley and Jeremiah were with him, and Amos Royce. Lionel gave the bounty hunter a wary glance.

Jesse smiled, tiredly. "You know me, man. I'm always on your tail."

Lionel looked to Amos. "You?"

"Me," Amos said. "I'm here for Jesse. He's here for you. We're all friends, here."

"Some of us more friendly than others," Lionel grunted, looking pointedly at the teenagers. Jesse and Sue and looked away. Sue blushed. Lionel was reminded of Celia's reaction to his comment, in the shack, and his heart gave a heavy thud.

Bradley nodded to the group. "We have a tentative plan, here―"

_"You_ have a plan," Lionel said. "Mine is separate." He glared at the soldier.

"Who is this guy and what the hell is he doing here?" Kelley asked, eyeballing Bradley.

Bradley started to talk but Lionel cut him off. "This is what remains of Paramount Force Sigma," he said. "Bradley."

The others, excepting Amos, jerked in surprise. "How are you not _dead,_ man?" Jesse asked.

"And how is Phaeton not dead, if you are _alive?"_ Jeremiah asked.

Bradley chuckled slowly. "We had a talk. He choked me a little, we talked again. He's promised to kill me when this is over."

"And you're trustworthy?" Sue gaped at the soldier.

Bradley removed his helmet, and extended a hand to the group at large. "I am willing and ready to help your cause," he said, gravely. "And I believe that Lionel needs the guiding hand of an experienced Paramount soldier to steady him."

"I'll say," Jesse muttered. Lionel smacked him upside the head, quickly. _"Damn,_ dude―"

"Don't swear," Amos said. "You earn your lumps with disrespect."

Lionel stared at Amos. He'd half figured the mercenary would punch him for smacking Jesse. The last time he'd hurt Jesse, Amos had put that shotgun of his right to his temple. He was at a loss for thought, with new allies and old enemies around him. Didn't know what the hell he was doing, anymore. Couldn't predict people'd behavior. Didn't feel good, not knowing what to do.

"So, what _is_ your plan, Lionel?" Sue asked.

Lionel grumbled to himself. Once again, too many people knew his name.

"He's going to rush in and get himself killed, I bet," Jesse said.

Amos sighed. "Jesse, just shut up for a moment. Lionel?" he looked at the ghoul. "If you really want to get her out, it would be best to let Bradley take the lead."

Kelley and Jeremiah exchanged glances, and Lionel knew he was going to be annoyed very quickly with the Royce brothers. "Shut up about _that,"_ he muttered at Amos. "Not everyone here needs to know about it."

"It's not weakness," Bradley said.

"I don't really _care_ what _you_ think," Lionel snarled. "It's _your_ fucking fault, to _begin_ with." He stalked away from the group.

Behind him, Amos argued with Jesse and the kid ran off into the surrounding wastes. He heard Bradley explaining that he'd retrieved the infrasonic thing, and how he'd removed Celia from the shack. Lionel punched the grime-coated metal wall and muttered curses under his breath. She was still _alive._ She _should_ be dead. It would be better that way, easier. Easier for him to justify the _stupid_ plan he'd made when he'd been laying on his back under his own fucking roof while the giant ants tried to get at him.

_Just keep going,_ he told himself. If she hadn't come back to the shack, she would be another corpse in the wastes. Wade would have captured her, gotten the information he wanted―one way or another, and Lionel knew that pain made a fast talker―

Lionel didn't understand why Celia hadn't wanted to give the metal piece away, if it would have ended her involvement in the whole mess. It was that stubborn nature that made the Landis family something special, he thought. And what drew him to her, and kept her to him.

_When I find her..._ He shook his thoughts free of rust. _When I find her, I'll be a monster._

"Do you really love her _that_ much?" Sue asked him, startling him.

"I don't know you well enough to get into that," he growled, turning to her.

"If you do," she asked, "do you think she'd want you to die on your way in?"

Lionel eyed her intently. "What the _fuck_ are you on about?"

Sue considered him, her eyes barely visible in the darkness. "You've done a lot for Detroit, but you can't risk much more, if you want to be the one to save her."

"Leave me _alone,"_ he grumbled.

"Does she love you?"

_After this, she won't. I can't be trusted,_ he thought. He remembered that shameful dream, and squeezed his eyes shut. Goddamn memories. Lionel groaned, and punched the wall again, in frustration. _"Goddammit,_ Sue!" he yelled. "It's _my fucking business!_ Stay _out_ of it!"

She was quiet for a long time. He leaned on his fist, against the wall, his breath heavy. That dream memory had set him off. _No,_ he thought, _I need to control that._ Fucking radiation, healing the part of him he'd wanted most, at the _worst_ time.

"Lionel?" Sue asked.

He stood to his full height, and turned on the girl. Sue backed away from him. Lionel said nothing, but stared at her, his fist clenched, an angry look on his face. Amos was looking in their direction, and he knew full well the man was thinking about Lilian and St. James.

She stared back. After a moment, she asked, "Aren't you scared of turning into Phaeton?"

"How would _you_ like to live the life of a ghoul?" he growled. "I have no _choice!"_

She was quiet again, and a sad look crossed her face. "Don't worry," she said. "I'm sure you'll die in Detroit before that happens."

He walked away from her. He didn't want to think about it, anymore. He just wanted to get Celia back and go _home._ That was _all._


	67. We're All Scared

Jesse had found a hole in a stand of rocks about twenty minutes walk from Detroit, and the group gathered in the temporary camp. Lionel hid from view, while the others sat around the entrance to the hole and discussed what they should do.

For a whole day, the group mulled on a plan. Bradley mentioned that, with the proper dress and keycard, almost anyone could go into the city.

"I lost mine," Sue said, shooting a glance at Jesse.

"No, you didn't," Lionel said. "Jesse?"

"Oh, for the _love of―"_ He started emptying pockets and produced several keycards. Each one had been taken from the towers that he and Lionel took down. "Don't you people ever hang onto stuff because it might be useful?" he asked, trying to justify it.

"Thievery, too?" Amos gave him a stern look.

"I was a terrorist for a while. _Write a list,"_ Jesse sniped.

Lionel looked at the pile of cards. "Seems like an idea," he said.

"You should all keep one, just in case," Bradley said. "Lionel won't need one."

"What are we going to do about _him,_ though?" Sue asked, grabbing up her own keycard.

Bradley had a plan, which took him away from the hideout. He didn't tell them right away, Sue suspected, because the ghoul was staring him down meanly. No one asked him, again.

Bradley was gone half the day, so Sue and Jesse took the opportunity to get some sleep. At least, Jesse slept; Sue was having trouble with all the thoughts bumbling about in her head.

She looked at Jesse, in the somewhat passable light of sunset. She watched the gentle rise and fall of his chest, saw the beard that was beginning to grow on his face. She just looked at him, and she wondered.

Sue didn't understand how ghouls worked. None really did, but the ghouls themselves, she supposed. She knew about feral ghouls, Jesse had explained it. It was what happened to the demons in the Sepulchre. She couldn't really picture it, but she had a vivid description provided by Jesse in her mind. Sue wondered what happened to the ghouls that were considered Exalted. No one heard anything about them after they entered the higher levels of the Temple.

She tried to imagine enjoying a hug given by Lionel. He was a bit dried out, like a dead tree, whenever she'd accidentally touched him. But still―that ragged skin, peeling from the muscles, the ugliness of the exposed muscles; Lionel was slightly blue-tinged in that aspect. The veins that ran up and down his arm were disgusting. And his face, cheeks without padding, nose completely gone, his eyelids a tiny strip of skin that barely worked. No lips. How would you even begin to _kiss that?_

Sue shuddered at the thought. No one could look past that much carnage. She looked down at Jesse. Maybe Celia could, Jesse had told Sue she was a weird chick. Sue had a very hard time imagining who would want to touch Lionel on _purpose,_ or do _more―_

She gagged, and clung to Jesse. He turned onto his side and mumbled something incoherent.

"Jesse?" Amos called out.

Sue poked her head out from the dip they were laying in atop the rocks and said, "He's sleeping." She was grateful for the distraction from her own thoughts.

Amos waved her down. "There isn't much we have for food, right now," he said. "Lionel can eat just about anything but I need Jesse to come out with me and hunt. Can you watch out for the ghoul?"

"You don't want him running off on his own," Sue stated.

"No," Amos said. "I don't. Don't worry, he won't eat _you."_

"Are you sure?" she muttered, and looked toward the hole in the rock.

"Yes. You're a girl, Sue. He'd eat _Jesse_ before he'd eat you. Go on, I'm gonna rouse the rock fowl up there."

She trudged to the entrance of the hole and sat down, looking up at the sky. It was almost pitch black in the near areas of Detroit. She almost missed Sterling. Sue looked down and saw Lionel laying in the hole, his arm resting on his stomach. She wondered how he'd lost the other one.

"Quit staring," he said, and sat up. She quickly looked away as her eyes met his, those crazy starry cataracts right on her. Her heart pounded nervously, and the thoughts she'd had reared their ugly head.

"I don't get it," she said, once her chest calmed itself down. She stared at the dirt at her feet. "How come you traveled so far? Is she really worth it?" Her need to know was blaring an alarm in her head. If she didn't ask him now... she thought.

"I'll kill that kid for talking so much," he growled.

"No, you _won't,"_ she snapped back. "If you so much as lay your hand on him―"

He laughed at her. He laughed! She fumed. "Well, there's your answer," he said.

She thought about it. She couldn't say she was in love with Jesse, but he was hilarious at times, and she really enjoyed his company, especially the sex. It wasn't _just_ the sex, she told herself. He was a good guy, and she could see herself with him, in the future. He hadn't asked her any questions she couldn't answer, hadn't pushed her into anything she didn't want to do.

"I guess," she answered the ghoul. Jesse's grumpy voice came over the air in snippets. "But how can you want to love someone who'll die before you?"

"Everybody dies, Sue," he said, patiently. "Some things in life, you only get one chance at."

She peered down at him and saw he was looking down at his hand, clenching it. "Not scared of going feral, anymore?" she asked.

It was a long time before he answered. Jesse's voice rose and fell over the rocks and Amos' low pitched rumble followed it. Sue had almost forgotten what she'd asked by the time his voice came through the hole in the rocks.

"We're _all_ scared, kid."


	68. We're Gonna Die

Bradley didn't return for a long time. He was insistent on going back to bury Mayer and Angus, in that calm manner he had. Lionel spent half of that time sleeping. He hadn't slept well in ages, not since they'd left Grayling with Lilian. Too many nightmares. When he woke up, he had to ignore Kelley and Jeremiah, who were very confused about what was going on. He didn't bother to help, just sat miserably in the rocks and wondered what the hell he was doing.

He thought about the months before the soldiers showed up. She'd brought him electronics, said she found them in the base or around the area. That was an obvious lie―he smiled about it now, but at the time he'd been pissed. Lilian had argued with him about it, said they should overlook it. Celia wanted to please them, Lilian said, and that was how she expressed it. He'd fixed the electronics and had Celia sell them, but it hadn't made him happy to know she was effectively feeding him and Lilian.

And Celia had never said a word about it after the initial lie. She must have known she was paying for their food. Lilian was used to being kept. Lionel was not. How many times did he come back to the shack and find Celia sitting at his table with Lilian, leaving him with nowhere to sit, or found her picking his damn blueberries or just bugging him in general with all her damn questions?

He hadn't wanted to answer them, _then._ He'd give anything to answer them, _now._

Celia had acted like she belonged with them, like there was nothing separating the three of them. Like they were a family. Lionel's family had been a Judaistic father and his crotchety grandfather. He hadn't thought about his father in a long time, when he'd told that story to Celia. He remembered the thirteenth principle of Jewish faith. A sarcastic smile curved across his face.

He stared out across the wastes. He didn't feel the same rage as he had, before. He felt like slow old Lionel again.

It made him feel helpless that he hadn't been able to keep Celia for more than a day. But that had been one tense, _wonderful,_ day. He'd felt normal again, not like a ghoul, with a normal person who was willing to touch him, talk to him, _be_ with him. He hadn't even thought about being a ghoul until Celia picked on him about his nerves. And she'd even made _that_ feel alright.

It was worth that, to be a _monster._

Bradley returned with two sets of power armor. "I think we can get Lionel into the city without trouble if we use these," he said. "I will teach you to wear them."

Lionel shook his head and gestured at the Royce brothers. "No. Amos and Jesse should. You can march me through the streets like you wanted to. Phaeton will walk."

"I want to learn," Jesse said.

"I don't think you have the patience," Bradley said, but his voice was lighthearted.

"If they're gonna pretend to be Sigma, what will I be doing?" Sue asked.

"Amos will escort you into the city and attempt to take control of the Archive Tower. Jeremiah and Kelley will go to Broadcast Control." Bradley looked at her. "Convince them to help us, or terminate them. _Dead ball._ All opposition, even friendly, bounces off of us."

"Why Amos?" Sue asked, pouting.

"Because Jesse is an idiot," Amos said. Jesse protested. "If you go with Sue, you won't want to be as tough as we need to be, Jesse."

"He thinks we'll ditch and run again," Sue muttered to Jesse.

"You two are too close," Amos said. "You'd be acting moony like Lionel."

"You better stop insulting me," Lionel growled. "I haven't felt _your_ neck, yet."

Amos laughed. "No worries, old man. I'm much more useful than Bradley. You won't have to kill _me."_

"Lionel is a ghoul, so he deserves the right to ask for judgement. No one will stop us. It's tradition," Bradley said. "Sigma is allowed to bring weapons into the Concourse. We will execute the High Ferrule once the Broadcast Tower is down, but it will have to be very close to when we enter the Temple. Do you understand?" The rebel men only smiled grimly.

"It sounds too straightforward," Lionel said.

_"Yeah,_ we're gonna die," Jesse added. He stretched out lazily on the rocks and Sue clung to him like she would never let go. Lionel's stomach rose, and he looked away.

"We don't have any escape plan yet," Amos said. "We need to work on that."

"We won't escape," Bradley said, point-blank.

"I don't want Jesse to go with you, then," Amos said, hard-voiced.

"Escape implies that we will need to regain our liberty," Bradley said, smiling faintly. "We will _already_ be free."

"Can we use that ISD thing to enslave people, even temporarily?" Sue asked.

"No," Bradley said. "There's many facets to our plan. We can't have an unknown." He looked over at Jesse. "There is a chance that we could be forced to comply by the ISD, though."

"Wonderful," Lionel muttered.

"There's nothing we can do about that but hope that we will not suffer," Bradley said.

There was a lull in the conversation. Jeremiah sang a short song, a dirty-minded one, trying to lighten the mood. Almost everyone laughed. Lionel did not feel much like laughing, at all.

"How do you think we'll die, if we do?" Sue asked, in the gloom. Everyone turned their head to look at her.

"Quickly," Bradley said. "By your own hand, if necessary. You don't want to get captured. You'll go to Golgotha, or even the Sepulchre." He paused, looked over at Lionel. "Celia was sent there."

A moment of silence. "But no one comes _out_ of the Sepulchre―" Sue started.

_"She_ did." Bradley sighed, and loosened his armor, scratching his collarbone freely. "Phaeton refused to eat her, apparently."

Jesse dissolved into laughter on the rocks. "Too funny!" he gasped. Sue stared at him and Bradley shook his head. "What?" Jesse asked, when he regained control of himself. "She's so _weird,_ man."

"Shut _the fuck up,_ Jesse," Lionel said. "I _mean_ it." He climbed out of the hole and approached the kid.

Jesse looked up at him, without wavering. "Aw, c'mon, man. You know she _loves_ you. That's why you're going after her."

There was an awkward silence, and Lionel stared down at the kid, trying not to embarrass himself. Eventually, he walked away, down from the rocks. Jesse followed him, after a moment.

"I'm sorry, man," he said. "I didn't mean to―"

"Jesse, if you _don't shut up,_ _I swear I will end you."_ Lionel felt his leg muscles tense and turned to the boy. "It's bad enough you had to go _blab_ my story all over creation. I don't need you reminding me. _I_ _remember."_

"Look, I know I'm _stupid,"_ Jesse said, smiling sheepishly. "All I was trying to say is that, if _anyone_ could survive down in that tomb with all those ghouls, it would be Celia."

_"And why is that?"_ came an indescribably angry voice from behind Lionel.


	69. 2058

Celia sat in the bower, her face sweating, her stomach roiling. Adam had ordered her to sit at his feet, facing away from him, and was running his hands up and down her shoulders and neck like he had a right to touch her. He breathed hot air into her ear as he audibly enjoyed the feel of her skin. She blinked slowly, and tried her very damnedest not to shriek.

But that was all she wanted to do, and she could feel the edges of her willpower crumbling. She kept thinking about Lionel and how he touched her neck, how it felt so much different than the comforting hugs and pats he'd given her. How he'd reacted when she brought sex up in the conversation.

She wasn't that stupid. She knew she was a target when it came to physical attention from men. Calhoun, Mayer... Even Lionel, who had _said_ he wasn't interested, even if his _hands_ said otherwise. Why hadn't she remembered that he was still a _man?_ ...She didn't want to, she supposed. He'd been some kind of neutered hero to her, and she felt ashamed for wanting him to stay that way.

Adam shifted his hands to her scalp, feeling the skin under her hair. She shivered slightly, but not because she wanted to. He made a noise, and ran his hands along the same spot. Celia shivered again.

He shoved her off his lap and she fell to the wooden floor of the bower, catching herself with her palms out. A sheet of corrugated metal fell silently from the ceiling and landed with an enormous clatter near her, startling her. She jerked away from it, involuntarily. Then she froze, terrified.

Adam hadn't noticed, was staring at the ceiling with the skin above his eyes raised. "Not safe," he muttered. He stood and adjusted his robes around his waist, pulling them into a bunch. Celia stared at the metal sheet with her heart pounding in her chest, then scraped her eyes across the floor to see a hammer lying on the ground nearby.

She moved a hand out, slowly, then grabbed it up and hid it in the pocket of her robes with a swift movement. Echo saw her, and her eyes were curious, but she said nothing. Celia felt her arms begin to tremble, from the strain.

She would kill him, she knew. She'd never wanted so _badly_ to kill someone, in her entire _life._

"Come along, Echo," Adam said, and took the chain that bound her to the floor in his hand. He left Celia there, and she stared down at the wood and wondered if he intended to leave her to be impaled by the work going on above her. She waited for the order to follow, but it didn't come.

_Surely he's not going to leave me here?_ she thought. She traced patterns with her eyes in the grain of the wood, and her chest tightened. A drop of sweat trailed dwon her nose and onto the floor. She was still bruised and beaten, and her nose was hard to breathe through.

"Follow, Eve," he finally said, and she stood up, shaking slightly. Her arms were terribly sore from holding herself so very still.

The weight of the hammer bounced against her leg and she tried to slow her stride to accommodate it. Yes, she knew she would use it, and soon, but she needed a better opportunity. She needed to be patient.

* * *

Landis came better prepared, this time, and Lionel swore as a shotgun blast tore through his lower leg. He hot-footed it up the rock face and practically lifted Jesse off of the ground, moving to better cover.

"I _will_ kill you, you _fucking zombie!"_ Landis yelled.

"Shit! Goddamn Landises!" Lionel ducked his head behind the rocks and felt the loose shards explode nearby.

"Cameron Landis," Amos called out. _"Cease fire!"_

"Oh, fuck you _ARC_ guys," he yelled back. Another blast of the shotgun sounded.

"Is it a double barrel or drum?" Amos asked Jesse, giving him a sharp look. _It was a test,_ Lionel thought. _Keeping the kid's eyes on._ He looked down at his leg and winced.

"Double," Jesse said. He had his rifle out and was creeping over the edge of the cover, slowly trying to get Landis in his sights.

"Can't kill him," Lionel rumbled. "Might need him." His leg burned in pain.

Amos shot a glance at the ghoul and shook his head. "At this point we might not have a _choice."_

Sue and the other two had scrambled down into the hole, while Bradley was standing tall among the rocks, looking down over his laser rifle. He chuckled. "A relative," he stated, more than he asked.

Lionel looked up at the idiotic soldier and moved his leg to a less painful position. "Father," he answered. He made a frustrated noise. "He reloaded yet?"

Amos nodded, but didn't bother to look over the rocks. No one wanted to stick their head out. Bradley was wearing power armor, and wouldn't take as much damage. He surveyed the man over his sights, then asked, "Should I shoot him?" He looked right at Lionel.

"No," Lionel said. "No, I'm not going to give the bigot the _pleasure."_ He drew his knife and cleared his throat. "Jesse, shoot around his feet."

"What?" Jesse held the rifle up to his eye but hadn't quite made it up over the rocks.

A shotgun blast hit Bradley and he grunted, but moved away from the rock face. Amos pushed his own shotgun up along the rocks, shooting a glance at the old soldier.

"Come out, you rotgut _piece of_ _shit!"_ Landis yelled.

"I dunno, man, you _sure?"_ Jesse raised an eyebrow at the ghoul. "Maybe we should kill 'im. Be a lot more simpler."

Lionel grumbled to himself. "We need him to be reloading," he muttered.

"No problem," Jesse said, and tilted the rifle down at the ground, firing off a shot randomly. He fired two more shots and a responding blast from Landis sounded.

Without hesitating, Lionel moved over the cover and slid down the wall, moving closer, his shin bleeding in spurts with the muscle movement. He flipped the knife in his hand, holding it the wrong way around. Landis saw him coming, redoubled his efforts to load the shells into the shotgun, but the minute he looked away Lionel threw the knife at him.

It hit him square in the forehead by the butt, a satisfying thwacking noise and grunt coming from the old wastelander. The action distracted him enough that Lionel had an opportunity to take him down. He grinned and drew his revolver, coming up on the man quickly, and hit him across the temple with the butt. Landis fell but didn't lose consciousness, and Lionel kicked away the shotgun with his uninjured leg, viciously.

"Fucking _idiot,"_ Lionel muttered. "Amos!"

"So is this a _new_ thing, or have you always been this effective?" Amos asked, looking at the ghoul.

Lionel shrugged. "Sneaky shit don't work on power armor," he answered. He'd honestly expected to get a chest full of shotgun wad. The knife had been a spur of the moment idea.

Bradley came up behind him, and held his rifle on Landis, followed by Jesse, holding his weapon as well. Sue and Jeremiah poked their heads out over the cover of the rock face.

"You got to stop trying to _kill_ me," Lionel told the old man. "I am not an enemy."

_"Fuck you,"_ Landis spat, his eyes moving between the ghoul and Bradley.

"Why are you even here?" Amos asked. "Celia told us you weren't her father."

"And _you_ told _me_ I ought to take her off your hands, so neither one of us really wanted her," Landis spat at Amos and held up a frag grenade in his right hand.

The reaction was immediate. Lionel clenched his fist around the man's hand and squeezed, Jesse and Amos backed up fast, and Bradley put the lens of the laser rifle against Landis' left eye. "I would advise you to discontinue this line of attack," Bradley said. "No matter why you are pursuing Lionel, your action will not be successful."

Landis grunted. "Fucking _ghouls,"_ he muttered.

There was a tense moment of silence, and the three looked at each other with varying degrees of consideration. Lionel stared at Landis with a tired look in his eye, his leg starting to hurt enough that it was affecting his balance. The wad had hit his calf, and the burning feeling started to creep up his leg like fire.

Bradley stared at Landis, putting pressure on the laser rifle, pushing him slowly backwards. Landis stared back at Lionel, his thumb inside the pull ring. Slowly, he moved the thumb and slackened his grip on the grenade inside Lionel's grip. Lionel knew he didn't want to let go.

He wrenched the grenade from the man's hand and hurled it out into the wastes. Jesse and Amos moved back toward them. "Why are you trying to kill me, _this_ time?" Lionel asked, shooting a glance at Landis. "We had a truce, didn't we?"

Bradley laughed, almost inaudibly. Amos kept his shotgun up and Jesse relaxed a little, as they approached.

"Man," Jesse said. "Didn't you get enough of an ass-kicking _last_ time?"

Landis looked between Jesse and Lionel, then shot an angry glance at Bradley. "Phaeton isn't walking anymore," he muttered. "We're all free game in the wastes."

Lionel's leg spasmed and he wavered a little. "I'm _sorry,"_ he said, suddenly. "I'm sorry that she's gone, and I'm sorry that you don't _like_ what's going on. I'm sorry I ever tried to help those stupid people!" He rubbed his face and felt the strain of the past few weeks catching up to him. "And I'm sorry I ever went looking for _you._ _You don't deserve her."_

Landis' eyes narrowed and he launched himself at the ghoul, headbutting him under the chin and knocking him back. Lionel didn't fight back, this time. The rage he'd been depending on was gone. Landis hit him over and over until Amos leveled the shotgun at the back of his head.

"Landis," he said. Landis raised up his hands and stood. Amos firmly escorted him away.

Jesse helped Lionel up off the ground, and made a strangled laugh. "Uh..." He sputtered. He laughed, a high-pitched nervous one. _"Man,_ when was the last time you were chased by a shotgun-toting father?"

"2058," Lionel said, promptly. It had been the first and last time it had happened, too. He smiled to himself.

Jesse laughed again. _"Seriously?"_

Lionel patted him on the shoulder. "Jesse, I used to be a lot worse when it came to women," he said, and a tiny smile tugged at his beaten face. "I got better." He looked over at Amos, pushing Landis back up to the rocks, and followed.

"I wanna hear that story," Jesse said, as he tagged alongside.


	70. She's Mine

There was a long discussion. Landis was orchestrating a plan to take the Temple down, he said. He and a few rebels in Abramov's group had managed to smuggle explosives into the Temple, gaining entry as construction workers. There were quite a few set around the building, disguised as TMA boxes and other mundane objects.

Bradley liked the plan. He and Kelley escorted Landis back to Abramov, would inform the rebel leader of the plan to walk Lionel into Detroit. Once they returned, the group know how soon their own plan could be put into action.

Lionel slept again, because he didn't feel like spending the last few moments he might have keeping Sue and Jesse company. They were clearly interested in _other_ activity, which only made him feel worse. Jeremiah and Amos had gone off for food, so he really didn't have much choice but listen to the teenagers on the rock wall, until he couldn't take it anymore and laid on his right side with his shirt wrapped around his ear holes.

Even if sleep brought nightmares, it wasn't like he enjoyed his waking world.

* * *

"Phaeton walks," Jesse told the group of dirty children who had gathered in silence to watch Sigma lead Lionel through Detroit. The children looked up at Lionel with wide eyes, and he bared his teeth and snarled. They scattered like radroaches. Jesse chuckled stupidly.

"This place is downright awful," he said, to Bradley. "How does anyone make it to adulthood in Detroit?"

"Lower your voice," Bradley said. He looked down at the ground and stepped around a pile of dirt. "It used to be much nicer," he added. "Less industrial waste. More sun."

"That's about _all_ that's changed," Lionel tried to joke. Even after sleeping so much, he was dog tired. His calf still hurt from the shotgun wound. He felt all the eyes on him, people watching him walk through the streets. Made his heart thud dully in his chest. It was almost over.

"You'll have to tell me about it sometime," Jesse said.

"Nah, kid," Lionel pulled up his foot and hopped over a pile of what he hoped wasn't sewage. The place stunk like smoke and shit and a nasty chemical taste in the back of your throat. "I'm going down swinging," he said, and cast his eyes up to the sky.

"Hell of a way to think," Jesse said. "...I got your back."

"Let's keep it quiet," Bradley said. He grabbed up Lionel's elbow and directed him through an alleyway.

They walked through the terrible mess of a city. The waterfront had been blown to hell, all remaining features a scabbed reminder of the impressiveness of Detroit. Lionel hadn't had much opportunity to visit, but his aunt had lived here, and he recalled the buildings that nearly touched the sky. He also recalled it was a good deal more cheerful being in Aunt Ruth's kitchen than at his father's house.

Everything in Detroit was painted with toxic dust. In the distance the loud machinery of the plants could be heard, a slow beat to a dying city. Lionel saw men with missing arms, like himself, and for once he was grateful that he had lost it through old fashioned chicanery, not in a stamping press or a roll former.

Bradley led them on a zig-zag pattern through the streets, avoiding the biggest debris. He was purposely staying away from anyone, even though he said they would not be stopped. Lionel suspected Bradley didn't trust him to stick to their plan.

_What plan?_ he thought to himself. Bradley said they'd kill the bastard and get out, as quickly as possible. The quicker they killed him, the quicker he'd get her back; but Bradley couldn't give any advice on what would happen once they entered the Concourse. It was an unknown he hadn't resolved, along with the possibility of brainwashing.

"When we get there," Bradley was saying, "everyone should be quiet unless necessary. Don't speak until spoken to." He turned to Jesse. "Act like you couldn't care less."

"Mayer was pretty chatty," Lionel said.

"Not when he was on contact point," Bradley replied. "Then he was moody and quiet. Yes, sir; no, sir."

"It's so fucking _hot_ in this armor!" Jesse moaned.

"Mayer took a dive off a bluff out by the west shore of Lake Michigan. I think it destroyed his internal heating coil control." He looked to the side quickly and gestured for them to follow. "It never got fixed. He also did something to his helmet's exhaust module. That's why it echoes."

Jesse laughed, and Lionel was suddenly taken back to that day when Mayer was taunting him, insinuating he was with Celia. His missing arm felt weird.

Maybe she'd been right about showing too much attention. Mayer might not have stomped so hard on his arm, if he hadn't been so passive and allowed her to act like she did. ...He wished he'd done better at making her feel better, then.

He grabbed at the stub of his arm and set his face into a grim expression. No, it wasn't her fault. He wouldn't think of blaming her.

"I could have stopped him," Bradley said, quietly. "I chose to ignore it. I could have broken conditioning."

"Remember that," Lionel growled. "You won't die easily."

"What breaks it, anyway?" Jesse asked.

"Fear," Bradley said. "Pure, unadulterated fear. That is why so many of the people realized after a nightmare."

Jesse stepped past a flaming barrel, and stopped. "Hang on," he said, sounding strained. "Gimme a minute, this armor is chafing me."

Lionel watched people lingering by the buildings, saw Paramount soldiers taunting them. One soldier had a metal pole and was thrashing a man with it. "How come these people haven't broken?" he asked.

"Detroit's population has the benefit of being subjected to constant exposure to the music," Bradley said. "You can't hear it?"

Lionel rubbed his left ear hole and looked away. Well, if that was something that saved his life, he felt even with Mayer for volunteering to die, robbing him of his revenge. Jesse held out his arm and Bradley adjusted the metal plate around the padding against the kid's skin.

"What made you break it?" Jesse asked the soldier.

Bradley stood up straighter and stopped mid-action. Slowly, he re-latched the armor pieces and shot Lionel a glance. "He calls her Eve."

"Who's Eve?" Jesse asked, confused.

"Celia." Bradley kept Lionel in the corner of his vision. Lionel knew what it meant, him watching him like that. _He doesn't want me to get angry and blow our cover._

That made him angry, anyway, and he clenched his fist, staring at the soldier with as much spite as he could muster. This was good―he wanted the hate back, he needed it. It was much better than moping about, or feeling tired.

Bradley saw this, and faced Lionel. "She's been conditioned. I watched him order her to shiver in a hot room," he said, "and to undress without unease. He plays with her, like a child with a new toy. The control is absolute, and that is terrifying."

Lionel turned, violently kicked the barrel beside Jesse, and stalked away from them. He was furious, now, the anger was riding through his head like a goddamn big headache with spurs on. _Good!_ he thought. _He won't have her for very much longer,_ he told himself. _I'll make sure of that._

_She's mine._

Fingertips dug into his palm, for lack of fingernails. _How dare any motherfucker try to lay claim to her!_

The street was on fire, now, fist-sized pieces of Brahmin shit burning in a line where the barrel had rolled away. Bradley took Lionel by the elbow again and walked him quickly out of the street and into another alley.

"You need to control yourself," Bradley said. "Save it for the High Ferrule."

"You can't tell me shit like _that,"_ Lionel hissed, jerking his elbow away from him.

"I regret that we were ever at odds, Lionel," the old soldier said. "That she has been treated so poorly by myself and others."

_"At odds?!"_ Lionel turned and grabbed the front of his power armor, staring at him with every ounce of hate and anger he possessed. "The minute you laid your hands on her, _you were dead!"_

Bradley didn't respond. Jesse watched them silently. Lionel did not want to let go of the soldier. He wanted to kill him, right then and there, to smash his face in with a piece of asphalt. He wanted to feel his hand on Bradley's neck again, and this time he _wouldn't_ let go.

"Hey," Jesse said, his voice concerned. "What if she tries to attack us, to defend the High Ferrule? If she's under his control..."

"It's possible he'd order her to attack. I hope that Lionel gets a hold of her before that happens," Bradley said, his voice ever irritatingly calm.

Lionel loosed Bradley with a shove and turned away from the two. The anger stayed, but was diluted with pain. "She's not very strong," he mumbled, and the pain turned into a spike in his chest.

"We need to keep moving," Bradley said.

"I'm gonna send a message to Amos," Jesse said. "I think I can see the Temple."

Lionel saw what he meant. A large radiation-stained building rose from the train tracks, lit up like a Christmas tree. He didn't think it was particularly impressive, compared to the ruins of the taller skyscrapers in the distance. Those buildings were dead shells; a bustle of activity was going on in the Temple yard, people in gray robes moving around, and patrolling soldiers with dogs. Scrap metal, rebars and corrugated metal sheets were being carried into the building.

Bradley dictated a message for Jesse to send to Amos and Sue, telling them about the conditioning being broken by fear.

"Is this the construction you said?" Lionel asked, gesturing to the work.

Bradley examined the scene for a moment. "Yes," he said. "Building the array on the Concourse roof."

"Are all those people going to get ki―" Jesse started, but Bradley cut him off.

"For what we are doing right now," he said, "any amount of casualty can be expected. It is probable that there will be more enemies than we anticipated, however." He sounded regretful.

Lionel cracked his neck, and made a fist. "Sounds like _fun,"_ he said, smiling grimly.


	71. Beauty

"Come, Eve," Adam said. "Come sit at my feet."

Celia obliged, putting her knees on the floor near the glass throne, and he moved her arms up to drape across his knees, pushing her head down onto his lap. She supposed it made her look like she had thrown herself onto his lap, limply. Adam adjusted her head so that he could see her face, and patted her cheek.

"Tell Echo the story of Beauty and the Beast," he said. Echo clapped her hands together, excitedly. Adam stared at Celia.

_"Once upon a time,"_ she began, careful to use her normal storytelling mannerisms, "there was a merchant who had fallen on hard times..."

When she was younger, her favorite was Sleeping Beauty. She wished she had three good fairies, right now.

" 'I will not kill you,' the Beast said. 'But you must bring this daughter who so desired the rose, to live with me in this castle. I will treat her kindly, and she will never want for anything.' "

_Lionel..._

She felt her heart beating so fast in her chest, it might explode. She couldn't slip up. It wasn't an option. She must survive. Adam put a hand on her shoulder under her clothes, idly running his hands along her skin.

" 'Am I very ugly?' he asked of her."

Adam cackled at this part. He always did. Echo echoed, and Celia wondered why the ghoul was building the array, why he wanted to control people. Was he compensating for the negative attention to ghouls, in general? Controlling others so they wouldn't think him repulsive?

" 'Yes, you are. But I am fond of you.'

" 'If that is so, will you marry me?' he asked.

" 'Do not ask me this,' Beauty said."

Echo always breathed a little faster when Celia told the part of the Beast dying. Her eyes would open wider, and she would look genuinely scared. Celia could hear her starting up as she said each word, closer to the end.

"He was withered, unable to speak. She held his head and he opened his eyes to see her face one last time.

" 'Oh!' cried Beauty. 'Please do not die! I did not know it, but I _love_ you!' "

Adam made a disgusting noise in his throat. She had to watch him, watching her, hoping he wouldn't see the emotion in her eyes or hear the faint wobbling of her voice. She was afraid he would find she wasn't in his thrall, but she was not scared of him. The hammer weighed down her pocket, pressing against her leg as a firm reminder of what she needed to do.

"Beauty's love had freed the prince. They were soon married, and lived happily ever after, in the enchanted castle."

Echo gave a satisfied sigh. Adam turned his head away from Celia, looking over her at something in his view. He frowned, and his hand on her shoulder grew a little tighter.

"I have come to be judged," Lionel said.

* * *

"Who is this, to speak to me so boldly?"

Bradley knelt before the throne, and Jesse followed suit, awkwardly. Lionel stared. He wasn't even trying to be intimidating, he was just damn surprised at who the High Ferrule was. He'd expected someone more like himself.

The bower was warm, uncomfortably so. On a throne of soldered metal and multicolored glass, a shriveled ghoul sat. He must have been very close to turning feral, Lionel thought, because he had lost all visible skin and looked browner than even Celia's eyes, that rich baked-in look that all feral ghouls had. His face was gaunt and his eyes completely white, though it appeared he could still see them. Lionel stared at him, and he knew he should be cautious, but he was too angry to care.

To his left, a tiny girl in white clothing stared at them curiously. Lionel ignored her, and slid his eyes onto the ghoul's lap. A familiar mess of brassy curls, arms flung out over the ghoul's knees, her own on the floor near his feet. She was looking away from them. His heart lurched. He forced the feeling away.

"Sir," Bradley said, "you gave me a chance to track down the terrorist. I have."

The ghoul turned white eyes onto Lionel. He glared back, as hard as he could. His eyes wanted to go somewhere else; he wouldn't let them. "Phaeton," the ghoul hissed.

"Yes, sir," Bradley said, and stood. Jesse followed suit. "I have brought him here, to you, for judgement."

The High Ferrule laughed cruelly. The little girl laughed along with him. "Congratulations, Bradley," he said. "You are officially the best soldier I have ever had."

"Thank you, sir," Bradley said. Lionel's mouth twitched.

"...Weren't there three members of Sigma?" the ghoul said.

Bradley nodded. "Angus was set upon by the one you see before you, sir." Lionel's opinion of Bradley rose by some small bit.

"Since you have done so well, pleased me greatly..." The ghoul smiled a sickening glimmer of rotted teeth. "I will reward you." He wiggled his fingers in the air like he was debating something, then laughed and pushed Celia off his lap roughly. She bounced to the wooden floor, landing with an audible thump. She did not move, other than to breathe.

And she did not look at Lionel, or Bradley, or Jesse; she only stared into the air with a strange look on her face, which had been mashed into a pulp at some recent point. A rainbow of colors ran across her entire head and neck, with small cuts and swelling defining her features. Lionel's knees felt weak, his legs faltered. Jesse bumped him gently with the lens of the gatling laser that Mayer had carried.

"Thank you, sir. I am honored," Bradley said.

"Why has he not been bound?" the ghoul asked, gesturing to Lionel.

"I cannot deny him the right to be judged, sir." Why had Bradley not _shot_ the bastard yet? Lionel breathed evenly, and was patient.

"How delightful." With a lazy motion, the High Ferrule sat forward and curled a finger at Lionel. "Come closer."

Lionel's hand twitched at his side, and he walked forward, trying not to glance down at Celia. The ghoul motioned him even closer. He stepped forward once.

"I can't see that well," the ghoul sneered. "You've murdered so many, stolen from my people, and blown up my radio towers, yet you're afraid to get up close?" He chuckled, and it felt like someone was rubbing petroleum jelly in Lionel's ears. A disgusting feeling, and he pressed his teeth together."You've turned yourself in so passively... Surely, you expect to be judged _defiled."_

"Yes," Lionel said. "I do." He kept his eyes on the ghoul. A weird vomit-like smell came from the throne.

"Well," the ghoul said, "I suppose it can't be helped. What is your proper name?"

"Lionel," he said.

"Your _full_ name," the other said, putting his chin in his hand.

Lionel smiled his own terrible smile. "Lionel Elisha Meisburg."

The High Ferrule laughed, an honestly amused one. "A Jew," he murmured. "Haven't seen one of your kind for almost one hundred years." He stood, and moved closer to Lionel. "Of course, there never were that ma―"

Movement to Lionel's left caught his attention, and fluttering robes came into view as Celia flung herself at the High Ferrule, landing a sickening squish on the mad ghoul's eye with a hammer.

Everyone was startled, and the High Ferrule grabbed the girl by her hands, a guttural sound coming from his throat. His eyes rolled in their sockets, one completely ruined by a hammer.

_"You have disappointed me, Eve!"_ he thundered, and struck her across the face. Lionel's arm shot out with his revolver aimed high, but the ghoul moved the girl to use as a shield. He pulled back, lowered the weapon.

The High Ferrule stood there with Celia, holding her with one arm wrapped around her chest and rubbing his hand in a circle, and Lionel's blood boiled. He fought the urge to shoot the son of a bitch, but the other hand was on Celia's throat, and he could see how tight it was on her skin. A low, painful chuckle came from the High Ferrule. He pressed his forehead to Celia's, hiding his head behind hers.

"So, _that_ is why you came to Detroit?" he rasped, and the hammer slowly slid out of his eye socket to the floor with a dull sound. "How _droll."_

Lionel stared at the back of her head, his hand gripping his revolver shakily.

_"Fuck you, Adam,"_ she said to him, blankly. Her hands jerked up and she went for his throat.

The High Ferrule's hand on her neck grew tighter, and she made choking noises. Lionel stepped forward, reaching out. With a hard shove and a sweeping motion, the mad ghoul tossed Celia back onto Lionel and held out the metal box that had started the whole thing.

The world turned into slow motion. In one moment he was reaching out to catch her as she fell, and in the next he was falling himself. The world blurred around him and his mind went comfortably blank.


	72. The Beast

She fell forward, into his arms, and for a brief moment, she felt nothing but joy. But then the infrasonic sound went over her skin, peppering her with goosebumps. She yelped in fear and pain when she hit the hard wood of the bower floor, landing on her already bleeding face.

Lionel stood above her, swaying gently. She panicked, and backed away on her knees, standing up. Bradley stood behind her, caught her shoulders, and she started to hyperventilate.

"It's okay, Celia," he said, gently. His voice was friendlier than she'd ever heard it.

"Calm down, chick," the other soldier said, and she jumped when she realized it was Jesse. She had assumed it was Mayer. What the hell was Jesse doing in Detroit?!

Lionel stood, doing nothing. Adam wiped his face, chuckling. Echo didn't echo, and Celia stared at her. She just sat with her eyes wide, frightened, hands hugging herself tightly.

"Bradley, hold her," Adam said.

_"No,"_ he answered.

For a moment, the High Ferrule kept wiping his face, then paused and slowly turned his good eye on Bradley. "Mayer, shoot Bradley."

_"Sorry,_ man, he's dead." Jesse nodded and held up the gatling laser, and a sharp whining noise started up.

"Protect me!" Adam shrieked, and dashed backward. Lionel moved in front of the ghoul and Jesse jerked the gun upwards, before releasing the trigger. Lasers shot out of the barrel into the ceiling. Celia shrieked and Bradley caught her, as she was going to throw herself at Jesse.

The laser rifle came out and Bradley aimed it at Lionel, one hand on the weapon and the other holding Celia back. "This is the unknown," he said to Jesse. _"All shots uncalled."_

A rumbling noise came through the Concourse and the ceiling shook. Celia looked up and crouched, covering her head. Clattering bits of metal and tinkling glass fell around them, one large piece sinking into Lionel's bad shoulder. He didn't even flinch.

"Landis really did it." Jesse reached out to pull Celia behind him. "The whole place is gonna blow. We gotta go, chick! C'mon," he said, moving away from the group.

_"No!"_ she shrieked. _"No! I can't leave him!"_

"Jesse, I need your help," Bradley said, keeping his rifle on Lionel. "I really _don't_ want to have to shoot him."

"Man, _you people,"_ Jesse moaned, and took the gatling laser off his back. He stretched his legs and then ran without stopping, straight into Lionel, who turned to catch him, but was knocked back just enough that Bradley got a clear shot.

The laser sparkled, almost, as it crossed within an inch of Jesse's back and directly into the remaining eye of the High Ferrule. He glowed, briefly, then dissolved into ashes and crumbled to the floor.

Lionel growled in rage, and picked up Jesse, slamming him to the ground. Jesse grunted and coughed, the visor on the power armor cracked. Lionel began to slam his foot repeatedly into Jesse's head, and Jesse threw his arms out to stop him, trying to grab onto his leg.

Celia didn't think, she just threw herself at Lionel, trying to pin his arm down. Tears streamed down her face. _"Stop!"_ she screamed. _"STOP!"_

Lionel grabbed her hard, by her shoulder, seizing her upper arm and slamming her to the ground. Stars exploded in her head, and she regained her sight just in time to see him lifting a foot to stomp on her. Bradley shot him, then, and she rolled to the side. She sobbed, holding her shoulder. Lionel's leg went limp at his side, and his head swiveled to stare down Bradley.

"I _told_ you," Jesse muttered, and coughed, and it sounded wet. "The gimp's gone _feral."_

Something happened, then, and Lionel stopped, wavering, his leg collapsing under his weight. "Goddammit," he said, weakly, landing on his hand and knees.

"Lionel," she moaned, feeling the scalp on the back of her head start to bleed.

An explosion tore through the roof, then, and she watched as the pieces of the array began to fall down onto them. Jesse swore loudly, moved himself over Celia, and she curled up underneath his armor, her head to the side.

_"Lionel!"_ she screamed.

He looked up at her with his wonderful starry eyes, and smiled, and a piece of rebar violently erupted from his throat.

The roof caved in on them, and a cloud of black dust billowed out from the Temple, as the building began to fall apart.

* * *

She came back to the tomb, to Rock. He grinned, ecstasy writing itself onto his face. The Rabbit cajoled him, brought him a story. They sat in the Sepulchre, his head in her lap, looking up at her with a shining eye, seeing her face in pain.

She told him Rapunzel, given away by her parents, locked into a tower, and never saw anyone but the evil enchantress who kept her there. The king's son―"Rock, Rock!" he cried, closing his eye in pleasure―came to the tower, and found her, and visited every day. He wanted to take her away from the tower, make her his bride, and Rapunzel wanted it, too. But the enchantress found him out, and she cut Rapunzel's beautiful long hair right _off her head!_

"Rock," he growled, curling his fingers in anger.

The Rabbit told him that the enchantress laid a trap for the king's son, and knocked him from the tower into thorns, blinding him. He grieved, for she had banished away Rapunzel, and he wandered for many years in lament, unable to find his love. Eventually, he came to a desert, where he found Rapunzel living with their son and a daughter. Rapunzel cried in joy to find him, and her tears fell onto his eyes, healing his sight and his broken heart.

And Rock was glad to hear that the story ended happily.

But the Rabbit cried, anyway.


	73. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

**ONE YEAR AFTER THE FALL OF THE HIGH FERRULE IN DETROIT**

* * *

Sue reached out and applied a tiny bit of paint to the chest piece of the power armor before her. She stared at it, dropped the brush into turpentine, and put her elbow on the table. She leaned back and looked at the design.

It looked good, without a stencil. She'd painted "ARC" in the bright blue paint that Amos had scrounged up, on all three sets of armor. Amos and Avery Royce's names were already drying on the other two; this one said "Jesse Sellers" on it.

Sue was proud of that name. She had to be, though, didn't she? Hadn't she married the poor fool?

She glanced out the window, a metal sheet propped open with a bar. Footsteps on the gravel walk caught her ear, and the low grunt of the Delaines as they grazed floated through the air.

"Hey, Peanut!" Jesse called. He pushed the door to the shack open. "You've been cooped up in here all day."

"They're finished―" she said, and swatted his hand away. "But not _dry!"_

Jesse grinned. "Looks good, Sue."

"It had better!" she mock-huffed.

He swooped her into a bouncing hug and gave her an exaggerated kiss on the cheek. "You're good at _everything_ you do."

Sue flushed and pushed him away. "Not everything," she muttered.

Jesse eyed the suits. "Amos signed off on that little flower thing?"

"It's not a flower, and no, but he won't mind." She pointed at it and traced the loops in the air. "A triskelion. It's got three prongs, for the three members of ARC."

He shrugged, and then chased her out of the shack with a whoop and a holler. It was a very sunny day in Gladstone, but not hot. Sue moved much slower than Jesse did, but then she had to, with the weight in her stomach growing heavier each day. she shot a mean look at Jesse, who looked back at her and patted her stomach on his next run-by.

She hoped the kid would be strong, but mostly she hope it wouldn't be as foolishly goofy as he was. She could still see the laser graze on his face, where hair wouldn't grow. His beard was a quarter as big as Amos' was, now, and she wished he would trim it up better.

It had been a whole year, after everything in Detroit. So much had happened.

Her paced slowed. Everyone had scattered to the wastes once the Temple exploded. Sue had been certain that no one could have survived, but Jesse eventually made his way out to Flint and had Abramov track her down. Amos and Sue had fled out to 75; Calhoun had gone to Abramov and started organizing an effort to locate the Vault Dwellers, to return them home to Stockton.

On the return trip to Gladstone, ARC had escorted Calhoun and the few people he'd found back to their home. Calhoun intended to return to Detroit and find more of them. Jesse told them what had happened, in the Concourse. Sue cried. Calhoun had sighed and looked off to the distance, sadly.

Jesse and Sue had gotten married the moment it was apparent that she was expecting. Ma Royce was severe on the young man, but Amos slapped him on the back and they had a good long laugh about life.

"Sue," Jesse said. She'd stopped walking, deep in thought.

"Sorry. I was thinking about Detroit."

"That?" he frowned. "Best to let it go."

"I miss Lionel," she said, and walked with him again, trying to mask her crying.

"Aww, are you crying, _again!"_ he asked, picking on her.

"Leave me alone, you jerk," she sniffled.

Jesse pulled her to him, pressed his forehead into hers and looked her straight in the eyes. "If I had known that Landis was gonna blow the roof like that, I would have just shot the High Ferrule right after he tossed Celia to the ground." He kissed her gently.

"I'm not blaming you," she said. "You said yourself that there was no way you could shoot him, not with Lionel in the way."

"Wish I knew why Bradley waited so long to shoot," Jesse muttered. "I hope they're both alive."

"If she hasn't killed herself," Sue added. "She must be living the most wretched life, to know he came all that way to save her and died before the happy ending."

"Aw, Sue," Jesse stroked her cheek. "He's better off, now." A silly grin came across his face.

"I know," she said, "you told me about her trouble."

"That girl was _nothing_ but trouble," Jesse said.

"I still miss Lionel," Sue said.

"Me too, chick," Jesse said, and jumped into a tree, whooping.

* * *

Calhoun went back to Detroit and found more people with Abramov's help. Within a week, he'd found every one of them, dead or alive.

Pesaro and Jason Knowles died in Stockton. Benjamin, Ida, Darla, and Susan had died on the trip to Detroit. Jim Stockton, having lost his whole family, had opted for a quick death by the sentry bot, at the gates of Detroit.

Mike Rind had died in an accident at the Chryslus plant, but Sally had given birth and had a son. Her father Joel had been put to work at the old Chryslus plant with Mike. The survivors had gone home.

Thomas Knowles, the Hollises, Tom Perkins and Jacob Ievvi had been executed for various reasons, mainly that they hadn't taken to the conditioning.

Patricia Easton and her daughter Sharon returned home along with Dot Woods and her husband Gus.

Ed and Ann had suffered, when Virginia was taken from them upon their arrival in Detroit. Calhoun found Virginia had been in the Temple at the time of the explosion, and was found wandering outside after the dust settled. She was banged up, but safely returned to her parents, and home.

Eleven people survived out of the original twenty-nine.

Calhoun ran into Bradley, helping to restore Detroit to its former state. Without his power armor, he was just another old man in the wastes. He smiled at Calhoun, and the action looked foreign on his face. "We're better for this," he said. "Paramount is in the hands of better people, of competent leadership. The soldiers are no longer beating people, no one is being forced to work, and the silence is deafening."

"But the manufacturing plants―"

"Will function," Bradley said. "But, now that they no longer run day and night, the sky is starting to clear up. Detroit has actual sunlight, today."

Calhoun stared out over the city from a high spot, watching the activity. People were still cleaning the grime from the streets, a slow process. Buildings were spotty, washed with relatively clean rain that hadn't been coating them repeatedly in soot. Some of the debris along the roads was gone, but the pile of rubble that had been the Temple of Solomon was left alone. No one wanted to risk going near it, anymore. And no one could say what had actually happened to the dozens of ghouls that the High Ferrule had put into the Temple's higher levels. Perhaps they were never there.

After the music stopped, people had slowly come to their senses.

Those like Bradley, who had been the original stock that the High Ferrule trained into soldiers, were all at least fifty years old. Bradley told Calhoun that the older folks were invaluable; they kept the young people from turning the city into a mess, from blowing it up and destroying it completely. There was still a resistance that believed Detroit should not exist.

Calhoun stared at the city and a beam of sunlight broke the clouds, brilliantly shining down onto a street. The people in the distance cheered, and Calhoun felt awed by their spirit. Even for a little sunshine, they cheered like nothing else.

He could see the red barred sign on the entrance to Golgotha. He walked down to examine the door and wonder. Had the prisoners been released, or had it just been locked up tight and no one got out?

"It's sealed now," someone said, behind him. "Phaeton will never walk again."

Calhoun turned, nodding. "For the best," he said.

Celia walked down the steep hill and stood by his side. "How many?" she asked. Her eyes were tired, dead to emotion in that wide brown face. She looked more mature, stood more confidently. She wore leather armor and had a rifle across her back, and her hair was put up in a bun behind her head, with no loose curls. All business, he thought.

"Eleven survived," he said. "Including your brother and his family."

She nodded to herself. "Ed is tough. He'll be alright."

He watched the wind pick at her hair, blowing a few thin pieces out of the tight bun. She twirled them around a finger and pulled them from her head, letting them fly off with the wind. "How are you?" he asked.

She rocked her hand. "Living," she said, dismissively.

"Will you come home?"

Celia barked out a sharp laugh. "Where the hell am _I_ welcome?" she said.

"With me," he answered, simply.

"I thought you gave up on that," she said, without feeling.

"Your sister-in-law humbled me," he said, and looked up to the sky.

"She oughtn't have," Celia said, and her voice grew thick with emotion. "None of this would have _happened,_ if―"

"You would have loved him, anyway," Calhoun said, gently.

She scoffed, and turned away, her sigh catching on uncried tears. Her breathing was heavy, and she swallowed hard. He knew that pain.

"I'm not asking you to love me," Calhoun said. "Whether or not you believe it, you belong with us in Stockton."

"With you."

"Yes."

Celia turned to face the door of the prison, and stared it down with shining eyes. "I don't know if I can leave―"

"He's not here," Calhoun said. "You know that."

She was quiet for a long time. "Are you content, Jack?" she asked. "With things the way they are right now?"

"I forgive you, if that's what you're asking." He smiled a little. "It wasn't your fault that Sigma was Sigma, or that we didn't listen to your warning."

"And are you willing to put up with my trouble?"

He laughed. "You've always been trouble, Celia." He reached out, hesitating, and put an arm around her shoulder. She didn't move away. "Your trouble, at least, meets and beats the trouble that the wasteland has to offer."

She watched him out of the corner of her eyes. "Are you tough enough?"

"Nowhere _near_ tough enough," he said, his eyes shining at her. "But I can learn."

"I hope so," she muttered to herself. She sniffled. "I think it might be time to let go," she said, tears in her voice again. "But I have to finish my work here, first."

"Work?" he asked.

She gestured, turning with him and walking up the hill to look out over Detroit. "Where Phaeton left off," she said. "I continue."

"How?" He looked up at the sky, saw a cloud break apart and more sunlight come bursting onto the city. A vibrant blue burned into his eyes, behind the clouds.

"There are still people who oppose Paramount," she said. "People who want to destroy the city. I work for the ones who want to keep Detroit safe."

"Safe," came a small voice at his side.

"Chloe," Celia said. "Adam's echo," she added.

Calhoun looked down on the girl, and smiled a toothy smile. She imitated it brilliantly. Her green eyes sparkled in the sunlight.

"Finding you is fortuitous," Celia told him. "She needs somewhere safe to go. I can't keep her and I don't trust anyone here who can watch her."

Chloe looked at Celia and moved around to her side, holding her hand tightly. Calhoun looked at the two, then out again over the city. "I could take her home," he said, looking back at Celia. "Virginia and Michael wouldn't mind another kid around."

She looked away and sighed. "No one wants me there, Jack. No one but you."

"You'd be surprised," Calhoun said. "You really would."

"I may not be able to return for a long time," she warned him.

"I've waited for five years already," he told her. "Since you were a school-skipping snot of a sophomore. I can wait five more."

Celia frowned at him and took Chloe's hand, standing and facing Detroit as the sun skipped through the clouds and played over the ruined buildings. Blackness and clean spots and enormous empty skyscrapers, burning barrels and puddles of black water, and a fresh breeze that blew off the water met their senses. Chloe pointed out Bradley's ancient form, his shock of clean white hair standing out in the bevy of people clearing the ground below them. He waved up at them and went back to work.

"After all," Calhoun said, "it's not forever."

* * *

END


End file.
